Neighbors
by The Silver Trumpet
Summary: After a terrible accident, Maleficent Moors was forced to give up what she loved the most. She fled her family with her only friend, her mare, and moved to a distant farm town. Her life was quiet until a new neighbor started talking to her horse through the fence, and she found herself enraptured by the fact that someone else understood her. Modern AU, Maleval.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Just a note to my lovely followers: my brother is going to be visiting my very small house with his whole family this week, and next week I have band camp, which is a week of literally no electronics allowed on the college campus where we stay. I won't be updating much of anything soon, but this plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone, so it got written. **

* * *

Maleficent Moors was proud to say that she was very independent, thank you very much. She couldn't_ stand_ people trying to take care of her. That was why she lived alone, save for her old thoroughbred mare, Nikita. She'd fled her family with her truck and trailer four years ago. They didn't understand. They pushed and _pushed_ and**_ pushed _**until she was about to break, and Maleficent was strong. She did _not_ break, not for anyone, and certainly not for those bastards that thought they knew what was best for her. The doctors said she couldn't ride anymore, but they were near the point of forcing her onto a gelding's back before she managed to hook up the horse trailer, load Nikita, and flee to Ulstead. It was two hundred miles away. They would never find her there.

Ulstead was a small town, and the people there didn't take kindly to an unfamiliar face, but that was okay. After all, she lived ten miles out of town on a desolate, isolated road. She went to town once a week to buy groceries and pick up any prescriptions she had. And that was all she ever saw of people. Who needed_ people_? Maleficent had never been a people-person. Horses were the best secret keepers, the best friends, the best companions. She didn't need a_ human_ companion as long as she had Nikita. The old gray mare had put off some weight over the years, but she was still very much healthy, and she enjoyed retirement in her pasture. Maleficent would spend hours beside her in the pasture, standing and sitting when her back complained.

So it was strange when she peered out of her window one morning while she brewed coffee to see an old, decrepit car hum down her road. She poured herself a mug and hobbled outside. The only time people ever went down her road, they were lost as all hell and needed her directions. But the gray Buick with the peeling paint pulled into the driveway across the road. She pursed her lips. That house had been vacant since she moved in. She leaned heavily on her cane and sipped the coffee. Nikita ambled over to the fence, searching for her morning peppermint treats, which Maleficent gave without glancing her way.

A young man, maybe a year or two younger than her, climbed out of the car. He looked harried. A set of keys fell to the gravel ground, and he went scrambling after them. His clothes were wrinkled and stained in places. He practically skipped to the door of the house, which looked to be near the point of caving in, and swung the door open. She absently stroked Nikita's nose while watching the man carry boxes into his house one at a time. She supposed a good neighbor might head across the road and assist him, but she wasn't a good neighbor. She was debating whether or not she should put up "No trespassing" signs when he looked up from his work and waved to her with a big grin, as though they'd known each other for years.

Maleficent finished her coffee and placed the mug on the ground beside her. She'd been caught spying, and now he had an excuse to come say those neighborly things like "Hello" and "How are you?" And now she would be required to act in kind. She cursed her own brashness while he crossed the road, clumsily tripping over the cracks in the pavement. A smile reluctantly pulled at the corners of her lips. She had never seen a person clumsier than herself, and it pleased her immensely to see someone else struggle with something as simple as walking.

He smiled broadly and pushed his hair back in a way she assumed she was supposed to find _charming_. "Hello!" She waited for him to continue. He seemed like the type to talk for the sake of hearing his own voice. She_ hated_ people like that. "I'm Diaval Ravenscroft." He stuck out his right hand.

She almost hissed in annoyance. A hand-shaker. She hated people who expected other people—strangers, even—to touch them. Her cane passed from her right hand to her left, and she shook his hand. "Maleficent Moors," she greeted stiffly. She made the decision to put up "No trespassing" signs right then and there.

But he didn't continue to chatter at her. Instead, he reached through the fence and stroked Nikita. "Hey, old girl," he murmured. Almost immediately, he found her sweet spot under her neck, and her muzzle began to twitch. He gave a soft laugh. Then, leaning over the fence, he whispered something into her ear. He turned back to Maleficent. She must have been staring at him blankly, because he softly explained, "Horses are the best secret keepers. I had a secret to share." He shrugged. "Sorry, I'll get out of your hair. Pleasure to meet you!" He waved to her and walked away.

Maybe the "No trespassing" signs could wait just another week or two.

* * *

Maleficent didn't work because of her disability. She lived frugally. Doctors had created a three foot list of things that she wasn't allowed to do, and she followed it to a T. No roller coasters. No bicycles. No skating. No sports. And absolutely, positively, she was_ never_ allowed to mount a horse again. But_ gardening_ wasn't included on that list. So she slaved over her garden until her back burned so badly that she collapsed in the grass and waited for the pain to subside so she could hobble back inside and take some Advil before coming back out to work on the garden some more.

Every morning, she awoke at seven on the dot. She brewed coffee. She went outside and groomed Nikita. Every other day, she exercised the mare on the lunge line. She finished with that about nine-thirty. She let the mare graze while she gardened until lunch, and she fixed a sandwich to eat in the pasture next to her horse. Often, the gray mare would lie down next to her and place her great head in her lap and demand scratches until exactly two o'clock, when Maleficent climbed to her feet again and kept gardening. By four, she washed up and fixed dinner, which she usually ate with Nikita as well. By eight, she considered her day complete, and she showered, read until she was too tired to keep her eyes open, took her pills, and fell into a tormented sleep.

But this morning, as she peered out of her window while brewing coffee, she noted that the man from across the road was talking to Nikita through the fence. The gray mare was absolutely soaking up the attention. She watched intently as the raven-locked man leaned over the fence and whispered something into her ear. A small part of her wanted to run—or, try to run—out of the house screaming, "Get off of my lawn!" and swinging her cane like it was some weapon of mass warfare. But a larger part watched him curiously. She remembered his words from the day before: "_Horses are the best secret keepers._" She'd thought for a very long time that she was the only one that understood that. This man was special. And that was why she watched him until he walked away from the fence, waving to the mare with a broad smile.

It became routine for Maleficent to rise at six-thirty rather than seven so she could watch the whole interaction between her dearest friend and her new neighbor. He started bringing her treats, little peppermints, baby carrots, crab apples. He eventually stopped whispering to the horse, but instead he just spoke aloud to her, holding a conversation with her. Sometimes the sound of his voice carried to the window. His voice was like an oncoming storm, thunderous but still serene. Maleficent craved those moments when she could hear his voice. She realized how long it'd been since she consistently heard another person's voice. And, though she loathed herself for admitting it, she realized how much she had _missed_ it.

Two weeks after Diaval had introduced himself, she walked to the window and watched him while she brewed coffee. He swung over her fence agilely and walked to Nikita to greet her. Her eyes narrowed. She hadn't spoken to him since the first morning, and he hadn't bothered her. But if walking to her fence and talking to her horse wasn't trespassing, swinging over her fence to pet her mare certainly was.

He didn't hear her approaching. "Some people would have you arrested for trespassing," she pointed out coolly.

He turned to her, shock portrayed over his features, before he quickly covered it. He slicked his hair back again in that way he meant for her to find _charming_, and he came to the fence line between them. "And some people would have brought me coffee," he replied in a much warmer tone of voice.

She raised her eyebrows at him and handed him the extra mug. "True." He climbed up the fence and perched on the top rail. "If you break my fence, you'll do the repairs," she threatened.

He smiled cheekily down at her. "That would give me a chance to spend more time with you, wouldn't it?"

She stared back at him, expressionless. "Is that why you come here every morning and try to founder my horse?"

The smile dissipated. "No, it's not. I told you, horses are the best secret keepers." He touched the scar next to his eye thoughtfully, and she tilted her head at him. "You're not good at hiding when you're staring," he pointed out.

"I feel no need to hide where my eyes wander." She was careful to keep her voice frosty and distant. Maybe she would scare him away, and he would stop showing up in the mornings. A tiny part of her protested that. It was the small, innocent part that craved the sound of his voice projected on the wind, the part that squealed in delight when he told her things she thought only she understood. "You're not good at hiding when you show up here every morning at exactly six forty-five and tell Nikita all your secrets until seven fifteen."

"Why would I want to hide that? I've been waiting for you to come out, after all." He watched her face, carefully watching for any kind of reaction.

She was cautious not to give one, but she couldn't think of an appropriately cutting response to his blatant hitting on her. The only thing that came to mind was, "_I don't like men_," and she wouldn't tell him anything that was untrue, even if she really wanted him to get off of her fence because it looked like it was about to splinter. "I suppose telling my horse your secrets is supposed to help your luck in getting me to go out with you."

"I had hoped it would help." He paused, obsidian eyes scanning her face. He was the first person she'd met in four years who looked at _her _instead of her _cane_. "But I'm guessing that it won't." He swung off the fence and ungracefully tripped over a root, almost falling on her. She stepped out of the way with her jaw clenched. They regarded each other for a moment, each briefly debating how to react to the other, before he looked at his watch and proclaimed, "Shit! I'm late for work!" He waved to her quickly, his typical beaming grin adorning his face, and charged across the street, hopped in his car, and drove away.

She stared after the peeling gray Buick. He had left his coffee mug on the ground, drained of the black liquid she had presented him with. An unidentified emotion curled in her chest. She finished her coffee and headed to get her grooming kit before she could start overthinking it.

Her routine was again altered by her neighbor. She rose, fixed two mugs of coffee—one black, one with creamer and sugar—and headed to the fence line where he was usually waiting. One morning, he missed his alarm, and came running up her driveway with uncombed hair and an unbuttoned shirt, apologizing profusely for his tardiness. She silenced him with a slight smile and handed him the coffee mug.

Though she would never, ever admit it, the best mornings were the Sundays only because Diaval didn't have to work. Those mornings were the best, because they weren't pushed for time, and he could wear casual clothing. One Sunday when he was running late, he crossed the cracked road and trotted up the driveway with two plates of pancakes in tow. She tried to dissuade his adamancy that she eat breakfast, but he doused it in syrup and placed it in her lap. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," he purported proudly.

"Yes, mother," she snapped.

A week later, he came with some small pastries. They stood side by side, Nikita peering at them through the fence while she waited patiently for her peppermints. Diaval got his hands confused and almost let the mare gobble up his donut before retracting it quickly and proffering the mint instead. He turned to Maleficent, who watched silently. Leaning forward, he whispered something into the gray mare's ear. Dark brown eyes blinked with wisdom; gray whiskers tickled his palm. Then, he cleared his throat and finally asked aloud, "So what's your story?"

She fought the childish urge to tell him it was none of his business, and she looked away. No one else had ever been as _bold_ as that, to come right out and demand what had happened to her. He put in again, "Your whole story. Beginning to end. Start with the day you were born." He raised a bushy black eyebrow at her.

She raised her own eyebrow in kind. "You first, then."

He shrugged. "Alright." He rubbed his hands together. "I was born on September twelfth, year 1989. My father was a drunken bastard and my mother was a stoner, so I lived with my grandparents on a hog farm. The pigs hated me, but my grandparents were nice enough. I got my first pony on my tenth birthday, and he hated me even more than the pigs, but I liked him quite a bit. I was homeschooled by my aunt. I went to Purdue and got a bachelor's in English, and when I came home they told me to get lost, so I packed my bags and moved here." He flashed a grin at her, almost as though his whole life wasn't a sob story from some movie. "Your turn," he prompted.

_Start with the day you were born_, she reminded herself. She restrained the urge to flee from him. She had agreed to it, after all. She avoided thoughts of how little she actually knew about him, how few weeks she had known him. "Born December twenty-sixth, 1987. My parents owned a thoroughbred horse farm and specialized in cross country training, and I was their guinea pig from the day my feet could reach the stirrups. Nikita was my first horse." She gestured to the old mare, who had given up on receiving any more treats and returned to grazing. "They thought I was Olympic material, and they shipped me and Nikita's colt across the country to various shows. His name was Silver." She swallowed hard. "One of my competitors, we took a liking to each other. I rebelled against my father, but he still refused to let me stop competing. He was determined to make sure I got as far as I was capable of going, regardless of what I wanted to do.

"When I was nineteen, Stefan and I were competing against each other in the Olympic qualifying rounds. I left Silver with him alone for a few minutes before I went on the course. I knew as soon as I mounted that something was wrong, but I thought it was nerves and went in anyway. The first obstacle was a pattern of downhill steps. When he jumped off the first one, the needle that Stefan placed under his pad jabbed him in the back, and he panicked. He tripped and went down. My foot was hung in the stirrups. He rolled down the steps with me trapped beneath him." She sipped her coffee thoughtfully. "It broke my back in two places."

Softly, almost silently, Diaval asked, "Was the horse okay?"

She shook her head. "They put him down on site. He couldn't even get up."

"I'm sorry."

Dark amusement played around the corners of her lips. "About Silver or my back?"

His eyes widened, and he sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "Well, you're, like, _alive_, and he's not, so I want to say about him. But both, actually." He offered an awkward smile for a moment, and then looked away from her. "Did you press criminal charges?"

She shook her head. "There were no witnesses to prove he did it. I got the hell out of dodge as soon as I could walk again. Hooked up my truck and trailer in the night, loaded Nikita, and headed as far away as I could go. I never heard from anyone again."

"And you just sit here and waste all your time away on that garden?"

Her eyes flashed. "What would you have me do?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. Go to an amusement park, take a hike, give riding lessons. Enjoy the brotherly shove of Ulstead." He gave a wry smile.

She sat down with her back to the fence and laid her cane down beside her. He sank down next to her. "I _am_ the brotherly shove of Ulstead," she teased. His eyes widened a bit, disbelieving. "A cane is a weapon of warfare. Especially when people think they can push around a crippled lady." Their empty coffee mugs clinked together, but Diaval made no move to leave.

"I don't think you're crippled," he finally mumbled. She turned to look at him for elaboration, but he didn't continue. She looked back to her hands in her lap. _ Crippled_ wasn't a term she had chosen to apply to herself; it was selected by her family. Her father's words came bounding back to her when she thought the years had covered them up: _You're not crippled unless you __**want **__to be, Mal, so get on that damn horse and __**prove **__that you're not going to give up on yourself! _Her hand went white-knuckled on her cane, still grasping it even though she could relinquish it. Diaval softly touched the back of her hand until it loosened. His touch left her, and she missed it.

Quietly hoping to turn the conversation to something less depressing, she darkly joked, "So I suppose every normal person has a list of things they aren't allowed to do prescribed by a doctor."

Diaval shrugged. "I'm not allowed to get close to dogs and have no desire to. Does that count?"

She snorted at that. "Hardly." She tilted her head back and let the sun kiss her face and hair. His dark eyes scanned across her; she felt his gaze crawling over her. She closed her eyes, but he was still staring at her plaintively, his onyx orbs boring into her. "Is there any particular reason you're staring at me?" she muttered.

His voice frowned at her. "Because…I don't know." He shuffled beside her. "I like staring at pretty people, I guess?" He didn't miss her stiffening muscles at that. "Sorry, I'll just—I should probably go." He jumped to his feet, for once not staggering over her, and started to walk away. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She wondered if he knew that she was staring at his back while he retreated, wishing he would come back, wishing she could run after him.


	2. Chapter 2

Their morning routines continued as usual. Maleficent provided the coffee, Diaval the breakfast pastries. Sundays were the best of all. She gradually changed her schedule to fit the weekly trip to town on Saturday, so she could spend less time worrying about if she would have enough time to go here or there if she stayed with him a little longer. He stayed with her longer and longer on Sundays, eventually sticking around for lunch almost weekly.

One Saturday, the autumn leaves had just begun to fall, and she climbed into her truck. She curled her jacket tighter around her and cranked it up. She headed into town and stopped at the supermarket to pick up all the goods she needed. People glared at her face, though after the years it was hardly an unfamiliar one. She held her head up high and made her purchases. Then, deciding she felt a little better than usual, she put her bags in her truck and headed down the street to the bookstore.

The bell dinged as she walked in. She didn't glance toward the cash register, but a familiar voice called, "Hello!"

She turned to him and approached the desk. "I didn't know you worked here," she said amiably. She couldn't remember the last time she'd used a _friendly_ voice with anyone, especially in public.

"English major, remember?"

"Yes, I do." Her lips curled upward of their own accord as they had taken to doing around him. She smiled more around him than she had in all her time since she moved to Ulstead combined. "Would Mister English major have any recommended reads for me?" She raised on shapely eyebrow.

He closed the book he had been peering into and met her gaze. "It depends," he said finally. "Would you happen to have a favorite genre?" His black eyes twinkled with the joy they usually held when he looked at her, and she fought the urge to look away.

"I'll read anything that doesn't end with happily ever after."

"Alright." He walked from behind the counter and headed to the horror section. "I suppose you've already read anything with Stephen King's name on it?" He browsed through their books quickly. "_Pet Sematary_? _IT_?"

"Read them," she affirmed quietly.

He inclined his eyebrows. "Figures. He knows all about unhappily ever after." He strolled through the aisles, and she limped after him, watching him peruse through the books, completely in his element. "What about _Night_ by Eli Wiesel? You know, the one about the Holocaust? Have you read that?" She nodded. "Damn." He kept looking. "Here, this one. _Ariel_. Have you read this one? It has a unicorn in it." She didn't look convinced. "Come on, it's a great book. I mean, except for the end, but you asked—never mind." He clamped his lips together to keep himself from revealing too much.

She took the book from him and read the back. It didn't_ sound_ like a happy read. "Alright, I'll bite," she agreed. He positively beamed at her, eyes glowing happily, almost as though she'd given him some great news. He checked her out and told her to enjoy the book, waving after her as he always did. She bid him farewell until the morrow and headed back to her truck.

Her trip to the bookstore became a weekly thing; just after her visit to the supermarket, she headed to the bookstore and picked up any book Diaval recommended. Winter came, and their morning visits had to be moved to the inside of the barn when it got too cold for Maleficent to leave Nikita out in the pasture. The old mare was starting to put off weight, and she worried for her health. "How old is she?" Diaval asked on one occasion, seeing the troubled brooding in his friend's eyes.

"Thirty-two," she responded quietly.

He nodded and whispered something to the mare before turning around to admire the old newspaper clippings, trophies, and ribbons presented on the wall. Maleficent put them up to remind herself daily of what she'd lost, but Diaval adored gazing at them, touching them, reading her name in the headlines. "Hey, this one calls you the 'Queen of Cross Country'," he pointed out with a smile.

"I am aware."

His face fell at her dead, flat tone, and he shoved his gloved hands deeper into his pockets. He wanted to apologize, but he didn't. He didn't need to look at his watch to know it was past time for him to head to work. "See you tomorrow." He offered her a smile, but her eyes were busy regarding the wall, and she didn't say anything more.

He was late to work from sliding through the ice and snow, but his boss didn't call him out on it, surprisingly. The only thing he ever got scolded on was spending too much time with Maleficent when she came by, but after pointing out she was one of their only frequent patrons, he was off the hook. No one came in that day at all, and he headed home half an hour early.

Maleficent shot out of bed at two in the morning that night, haunted by a nightmare. Her back throbbed. She crawled to her bathroom and took some Advil. Resting her head against the cool edge of the bathtub, she waited for the pills to take effect. When they did, she dragged herself over to her cane and staggered to her feet. She put on her coat and headed outside. Nikita had a knack for comforting her from the dreams that frequently haunted her.

She entered the barn and flicked on the light. Nikita wasn't in her stall. Her eyes widened. She peered into it. The door leading to the outside was wide open, and the mare was down in the snow. "Nikita!" she shouted. She scrambled as only a crippled woman would scramble toward the gray lump. The wind dusted her with falling snow. "Nikita, old girl, get up." She pulled at the mare's halter with meager strength. The horse snorted at her. She slapped her front hoofs out before her and strained upward, but her hind quarters weren't strong enough to lift her. She flopped uselessly back onto the snow. "No…" Maleficent breathed.

She hauled herself to her feet. She had to get help. Diaval. Diaval would help her. She skidded down the icy driveway and across the road, falling to her knees several times. Her whole body had begun to ache and tremble with exertion. "Diaval!" she shrieked, pounding on the door. "Diaval!" The porch was nearly caving in beneath her feet, buckling under the weight of the snow. "Diaval, help!" Tears budded to her eyes. He had to answer. He had to help her. "Diaval!"

He swung the door open wearing nothing but a shirt and his undershorts. His hair was mussed, his eyes bleary. "Maleficent?" He rubbed his eyes and blinked several times. "What's wrong?"

She started to cry. The tears froze on her face. "It's Nikita, she's down, and I can't get her up, please—please help…"

He shook himself and grabbed her by the elbows, pulling her into his home. "Sit down. I'll get dressed." She obediently sank onto his couch and buried her head in her hands. Her body quaked and shook from cold and pain. He came back up the hall suitably armored up against the cold. "Come on." His voice was soft, hoarser than usual with sleep. She staggered to her feet.

They struggled against the growing wind. Diaval's strong arms supported her by the waist when she thought she would fall again. Snow blurred their vision until they both sat in the snow next to the horse. She snorted at them and weakly moved her head toward Diaval's pockets as though searching for peppermints. "Hey, old girl," he whispered. Leaning to her ear, he told her a secret. Maleficent shivered next to him. "I'm going to get some rope, okay?" He headed to the barn and returned with two lead ropes. He hooked them both to opposite sides of her halter. Maleficent found her feet and took one obediently. They dug in their heels and pulled. Nikita strained toward them, but her hind legs refused to lift her.

They tried three times, each attempt weaker than the one before it, until the mare just waited patiently for them to stop pulling on her face. Diaval shook his head. Sweat poured off of him and froze in the frigid air. He walked around behind her and nodded to Maleficent, who pulled while he did his best to push and lift her hind end. It only succeeded in frightening the old mare, and with a toss of her great head, she had her owner down in the snow. "Stop, stop," she told him. "We're scaring her." She reached for her cane and tried to keep from crying out in pain while she climbed to her feet again.

Diaval moved toward her, shivering and sweating and snow-covered. "What do you want to do?" he asked quietly. His arms burned with effort. "We'd be lucky to reach two hundred eighty pounds between us, Maleficent. She's closer to twelve hundred. We're not strong enough to lift her."

"I know, I know, just…" She massaged her temples. "Let me think." He placed his hand on the small of her back and waited patiently. Finally, she whispered, "I can call the vet."

His lips parted slightly, and it took him a moment to reply. "You know what the vet will tell us to do."

She bent her chin to her chest. "Yes. I do." She turned back to her house, and when he moved to follow her, she said, "Stay with her, please." He obeyed, turning back to the exhausted mare. She staggered up the steps onto her porch and into her house. The vet's phone number was programmed in her phone, and she called it. "Doctor Johnson? Yes. This is Maleficent Moors." She choked back a sob. "I have an emergency."

After a short conversation with the sleep-deprived vet, she limped back to Diaval and sank down next to him. "He's coming." Tears slipped down her cheeks. "He's calling the backhoe operator." His arm curled around her shoulders, and she let him pull her close. How long had it been since she was utterly repulsed by the thought of touching him? Only a few months. He didn't tell her to hush or stop crying; he didn't wipe away her tears or tell her it would all be okay. Instead, he just held her close and softly pressed his lips against her forehead. She felt his tears fall into her hair.

They waited an hour for the vet to arrive. A rigid man climbed from a large white van. His voice was stiff and almost angry as he greeted them, as if he somehow blamed them for Nikita's midnight failure. He briefed them on the euthanasia process, and finally he asked, "Are you sure?"

Maleficent buried her face in Diaval's chest. He cradled her close and waited for her to nod against him. He looked back to the vet and nodded. She stroked her best friend's silver mane while the vet inserted the needle. Diaval leaned forward to whisper one final secret into her ear. Breath shuddered from the mare's lungs and didn't reenter. The vet rose to leave. "Backhoe operator will be here in a few hours to help you take care of everything." He clambered into his van and drove away.

After a few minutes of staring at the still body before her, the cold head in her lap, Maleficent asked Diaval, "What did you tell her?"

He bent his head, and tears dribbled from his eyes. "It's a secret." She sighed and looked away, hunched over the stiffening body. Her numb fingers ran through the silken mane. Minutes ticked by, and neither of them said anything until Diaval pulled at her arm. "We need to go inside." Her eyes fell on him, almost confused looking. "He said they would take a few hours. Come on." She couldn't remember ever touching him so much, or ever_ not_ being slightly repulsed by it. "We can have some coffee."

Coffee. Coffee sounded pretty good. She reluctantly lifted the head from her lap and laid it in the snow. She fumbled for her cane. A fire jetted through her back almost like she'd been shot, and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out. Diaval's warm hands steadied her. "Are you alright?" he inquired. She wanted to snap at him that she was _fine_, she didn't need anyone's help, she was independent. But this was Diaval, and he of all the people she knew would never, ever assume she needed help. "Is this okay?" His hands supported her waist.

She nodded jerkily. She slipped an arm over his shoulders and berated herself for accepting his assistance. Her grasp on her cane tightened, and if she were any stronger it would have splintered. Her face had gone white. He helped her up the steps and nearly kicked the door down in an effort to get the damn thing opened. She struggled toward the couch and sat down. Her lip was bloody from clamping down on it. Shakily reaching for her purse, she took two more Advil and lay down on her stomach. God, she couldn't remember hurting this bad since the accident happened. Her eyes flicked closed, and she fisted her hands in the hope of fighting off the pain.

He brought her a mug of coffee and sat on the floor with his back to the couch. "Here." He pushed it into her hand. She shakily brought it to her lips and sipped from it. It bitterly burned its way down her throat. She gulped it more readily until it was drained and her tongue was scorched. He touched her hand that dangled off the side of the couch. "Can I get you anything?"

"No," she croaked. He didn't leave her side, and she continued, "There's a perfectly good chair over there."

"I haven't gone blind," he returned drily. "Where's your remote control?"

"Mystery of mysteries." She took a deep breath. "I don't have cable anyway."

He ignored her and found the little electric device. The TV flicked on, and he started rummaging around under her TV stand for movies. "Do you want to watch _Titanic_ or _Silence of the Lambs_?"

"_Silence of the Lambs_," she retorted. She hadn't watched a movie in a very long time; she didn't even know why she had _Titanic_. There was the sound of a DVD clicking into place, and he crawled back over to her. He rested his head on the couch cushion where her head rested, and her dainty fingers combed through his dark hair. He smelled good, safe, comforting. He tilted his head back into her touch without question, and she gave a broken smile in spite of herself. "Thank you." Her emerald eyes turned to the clock. "Shouldn't you go to work?"

He checked his watch. "I _should_."

He didn't move. "But you're not going to," she replied. He shook his head. She sighed and lightly scraped her fingernails over his scalp. He relaxed under her touch. She wondered what this was, this mess of a crippled horsewoman and her understanding neighbor. And it was a_ mess_, wasn't it? It was_ such_ a mess. Her hand fell away from his hair. "Don't sit on the floor." She pushed herself up and ignored the unhealthy popping of her spine. She patted the cushion where she'd rested moments before. "Get up here."

He obeyed without question, but pulled her head down into his lap. A warm hand rested on her back, and the ache beneath it seemed to dissipate. Drowsiness pulled at her eyelids despite the coffee. He was too comfortable of a pillow for her to bear. She had vowed never to feel_ safe_ around a man again. But here, with Diaval, how could she feel anything but? This was a man who would get up early to whisper secrets in a horse's ear, a man who would rise even earlier to prepare pastries for his grumpy neighbor, a man who would struggle into his clothes in the blackest hours of the morning if she called upon him. Her eyelids fell closed. She slept to a final thought: _I think I'm falling in love with him_.

* * *

When she awoke, Diaval was gone. She fumbled with her cane and struggled to her feet. Her back pained her, but not as strongly as before. Peering out the window, she watched him monitor dirt being dumped back over a hole. He had chosen a spot between her garden and the pasture, and she dared to say that she would have picked the exact place. She hobbled out to him, careful over the icy patches. He turned to her. His eyes were red-rimmed. "You should have woken me," she commented. She ignored the frozen tracks on his cheeks.

He bent his head. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I thought you might be angry at me if I did. Some people really don't like having their sleep disturbed."

She shuffled next to him and resisted the urge to pop her back. "Lucky for me, you are not one of those people." His hand rested on hers which gripped her cane. They watched as the backhoe operator dumped the rest of the dirt over the grave. He demanded payment harshly and charged too much, but Maleficent was too exhausted and pained to protest. She thanked him for his troubles and watched the monster-like contraption roar away. Her knees wanted to sag beneath her, and she leaned heavily on her cane.

Diaval's eyes slid from the grave to her and back again. "Do you want me to leave now?" he asked finally.

So this was it. Her weak points were exposed, raw and open, before him. "I don't," she replied quietly. She brought her golden-green eyes to him, and they swam with tears. She didn't ever want him to leave. She wanted to bury herself in his arms, lose herself in his warm black eyes. And that fact scared her so badly that she wanted to_ run_. She wanted to_ fly_ like she once had, flying over jumps and sailing at a flat gallop while her legs and arms cued exactly where she wished to go and she was carried there without question, when the sounds of the world were drowned out by the rush of the wind by her ears and there was so much speed and adrenaline that she could no longer feel even the thundering hoof beats pounding distantly below her.

He tightened his fingers on her hand just a bit. "Then I won't." His hand fell away, and they crunched through the snow until they hovered over the mound of soil. "We can get her a stone with her name, can't we? And some flowers, when spring comes."

A tear tracked its way down her face. "Yes." The first day she met him, she had been so utterly repulsed that he was a hand-shaker of all things. But her left hand wandered from her side and brushed the back of his right. He took it without a question, and he let her tug him back to her house. She glanced at the clock and realized the whole day had passed; it was nearing seven o'clock. "You must be exhausted," she told him, instantly feeling guilty about the whole thing. She woke him at three in the morning, kept him from work, made him take care of her of all things, and he was still by her side all these hours later, never offering a complaint.

"I'm fine," he assured her. "You have enough coffee for a nation to drink." He helped her fix some sandwiches for them to eat, and they did so in silence. When nine rolled around, Diaval handed her a slip of torn paper with his phone number. He assured her that it was totally fine to call him whenever she needed anything. "I'll see you tomorrow," he promised, eyes dark and intent.

But she didn't see him tomorrow. She didn't see him that morning or the next or the one after. Every morning, she got up. She made two cups of coffee. She waited until seven fifteen, when he would usually leave her house to go to work. She dumped his mug down the sink. It was winter, and she cursed the season for making her unable to garden, unable to do _anything _to drown her sorrows. She missed Diaval so badly that she didn't even question why he hadn't come or where he had gone, and it wasn't until a week after Nikita's death that she even noticed his car hadn't been in the driveway since he promised her that he would see her.

That night, she awoke thrashing, and her back burned. She took some Advil and lay down, staring blankly up at the ceiling. She never tried to recall her dreams, but she did then, and she watched him in her mind's eye, watched his feet tangle in the stirrups, his hands grappling at the reins, watched him try to free himself from the half-ton creature that rolled down the jumping steps with him on her back. Her hands fisted in the sheets, and sweat poured off of her. Ignoring the hour, she picked up her phone, and quickly she dialed the numbers that he had left on the post-it note.

A sleepy voice came onto the line after four rings. "Hullo?" The voice was his.

"Diaval?" she whispered.

He snapped to attention. "Maleficent! Are you alright?"

She didn't answer his question. "Where the hell have you been? I haven't seen you in a week! You said you'd see me and then just disappeared off the face of the planet!" She realized her rant was angry sounding. She didn't want him to think she was angry. But she _was _angry.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts. "I'm…Well, I'm back on a hog farm. Nobody thought it would be good to inform me that my mom or Gram was dead, but there was nobody left for Pops, so I was the next of kin." His oncoming storm voice was a comfort to her; it soothed her throbbing back. "I have a hundred fifty thousand dollars' worth of hog farm over here, and I don't have any idea what to do with it."

She had to say that she felt like a complete imbecile, acting like she was somehow the most important part of his life. Her chest churned uncomfortably at the thought that he was most assuredly the most important part of hers. In a gentler tone, she suggested, "You could farm it." Her voice was almost, but not quite, meek.

"I hate pigs," he replied immediately. "And I…Well, I can't say I want to live here. It sucks, big time. Whole sodding place is one hellhole of animal torture and blood, and I can't stand it."

"You could sell it."

"I've been trying. Buyers for hog farms don't just pop up out of the blue, you know?" She could almost hear the fake nonchalant shrug in his voice. "I'm sorry I picked up and left. I wanted to tell you, but it all happened so fast, I didn't think…"

_I didn't think you cared_, she mentally finished. "You don't have any obligation to me. I just got worried, is all." Weariness pulled at her eyelids.

He waited a few moments before asking again, "Are you alright? Do you need something?" As though he could really help her with anything so far away.

She shook her head into the phone as though she thought he could see her. "No, I just…" She yawned. "…Wanted to hear your voice." Had she been more focused, more awake, she would have cursed the fact that those words spilled from her lips; they revealed too much. But she didn't have the effort within her to correct herself.

His voice was as warm as the arms that had held her on that frigid, icy night. "Goodnight, Maleficent."

"Night," she replied. She waited until he hung up, and she curled into a ball in her bed, letting herself fall into a peaceful sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

After that, they talked on the phone every night before bed. Maleficent didn't wander from her house unless she absolutely had to; the winter bit everything surrounding her to death, and there was no longer any comfort to be achieved by going to the barn. Her only comfort, in fact, was the sound of his voice rumbling over the telephone to her. "I'm coming home," he told her one night. "I should be home by tomorrow night."

She didn't attempt to hide her smile. She was the only one in the room, after all. "That's good. A few thousand dollars richer, I presume?"

"Of course," he purred. "I've got to get my house fixed up where it's not caving in around me. My porch was practically buckling under my feet." He paused, and she listened to his breathing. "Maybe we could go to dinner sometime this weekend, then?" His voice was delicate. Her heart leapt into her throat. She _wanted_ to go to dinner with him. She wanted it about as badly as she wanted to _run_. She swallowed hard and tried not to panic, but her voice wouldn't work. At her silence, he added, "Or we could fix something up at your place. You know, microwave macaroni and cheese with ravioli."

Her voice finally found her, strangled and weak. "Are you asking me on a _date_?"

He replied, "Only if you want it to be." Before she could say anything else, he admitted, "I miss you. You're the best friend I've ever had."

Her eyes fluttered closed, and she imagined him lying next to her. She felt his soft arms around her, comforting, safe, warm. "I miss you, too." He wasn't the best friend she'd ever had; Nikita held that slot miles above any human being. She whispered, "What day do you want to have dinner?"

"Would Saturday evening work for you?" There was a victorious tone to his voice that nearly made her smirk.

She leaned her head back on her pillow. "Any evening works for me." After a moment, she continued, "You might want to check the weather. Our road is almost impassable." In her softest, most vulnerable voice, she whispered, "Be careful."

"I will," he affirmed quietly. "Goodnight. Sleep well."

"Drive safe." After another moment of his steady breaths, the line clicked off. She lowered her phone to the night stand and rolled onto her side. Her book had gone untouched over the nearly four weeks since he had left. She nestled into her pillow and lay on her stomach. He would be okay. He was no idiot, and if the weather was too bad, he would stop and wait. She prayed for the weather to treat him kindly and let him return to her. Those thoughts soothed her into sleep.

* * *

She had no idea_ why_ she was cooking so much damn food. There were_ two_ of them. He might not even be hungry. He would probably be too tired to eat. He wouldn't want to be bothered. But then she heard his voice again—_"I miss you"_—and she persisted. She pulled the cake out of the oven and waited for it to cool to ice it. Her free hand flapped about uselessly before she refocused herself and sliced the turkey.

She didn't know how she hadn't realized that it was Christmas's Eve, but having nothing to give him would be easily remedied by making him a Christmas dinner. She pushed away her irritation. She _hated_ cooking, but she had to get him something because that was what _friends _did. Every year on Christmas, she gave Nikita extra treats, and the mare usually gave her an extra pile of crap to scoop along with devoted friendship. But now she had to appease someone who wasn't an animal. That scared her. It scared her enough to make her cook like crazy.

She had never been a skilled chef; her young life was filled with fast-food stops while they tried and succeeded to drag their horse half way across the country in one night and were ready for competition the next morning. Christmas dinner was a relatively foreign thing to her. Who _needed_ Christmas dinner when you could be showing on a snow-covered course with the commentators pointing out just how many people had dropped due to the ice?

It was on this that she blamed the fact that she absolutely charred their baked potatoes. With a sneer of disgust, she threw them down the garbage disposal. She took the green beans off the stove and considered them done. Her back moaned in protest, and she took that as her cue to sit down and relax for a few moments. She grabbed her phone and debated whether or not she should call him. She wanted to know if he was safe and how far away he was, but she didn't want to distract him from driving. "Screw it," she mumbled. Her thumbs clicked his name, and she pushed the phone to her ear.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Are you almost home?" she demanded. She could hear the hum of a car radio, and he turned it down.

He laughed softly. "I've got a few more hours. I'll be home by nine if there aren't any traffic complications. Why? Are you _worried_ about me or something?" he teased, his voice tickling her ears.

One of the timers she had set started beeping. She ignored it. "You have no idea," she murmured back into the phone. "I—" She cut herself off. She would not say that. Not yet. She wasn't ready. It wasn't right.

He didn't seem to notice that she had been about to start a sentence, a short, three-word sentence. "Were you aware that it is Christmas's Eve?"

"Not until this morning," she admitted. Static began to crackle over the line, and he bid her a quick farewell before he cut out completely. She put her phone back on the charger and headed to turn off the beeping timers.

Hours slipped by slowly. She tried to read but couldn't focus. She tried to watch a movie, but her gaze kept wandering to her phone, waiting for him to call and praying he didn't, because if he called, it meant he wouldn't be home, or it could mean that he needed help. By the time nine rolled around, she gathered her platters into her free arm and struggled out to her truck. By nine twenty, she was sitting on the steps of his rotting porch with her carefully prepared dishes resting beside her.

By nine forty, his Buick pulled up beside her truck. He climbed out of it. He was paler than she remembered, face more haggard, dark circles under his eyes. She stood and smiled. He came closer to her. With two quick steps, she closed the distance between them and hugged him. It wasn't until her hands grasped his shoulders that she realized she had abandoned her cane in favor of him. She couldn't remember the last time she'd walked without it, and her legs went weak at the thought of no support, no balance, but Diaval held her up with his arms that wound about her. He finally broke the silence. "I missed you."

He smelled like coffee. His clothes were crinkled from many hours of travel. But his eyes still beamed at her. "I missed you," she returned softly. Her back was starting to ache. The pain, she knew, was more than likely just a phantom whispering in her ear that she couldn't walk without the stick, but that didn't make it any less real. Feeling her fidget with the emptiness in her right hand, he used his foot to flip the cane upright. He caught it and pressed it into her side. Her hand reluctantly loosened its grip on his shoulder and took it. "Thank you," she whispered to him. She took a step back, away from him, and she instantly missed his warmth against her. The cold air bit into her, and she longed to step back into that embrace just to fight the chill. The snow crunched beneath their feet.

"What's this?" He gestured to the Tupperware bowls that rested on his sinking porch. Steam was visible from the inside of them, and he felt his belly turn in hunger.

She gave him a soft, slight smile, a curl of ruby lips that he had missed so badly. "I made you Christmas dinner."

He returned her smile. "Alright, then. Let's eat." He gathered some of the bowls into his arms and unlocked the door. "Try not to fall through the floor," he half-joked. He didn't care that he'd left almost all of his meager possessions in his car. He wanted to sit with her at his broken dinner table and share this one meal of peace. After almost a month of being haggled by rich men that knew a poor man when they saw one, he deserved some peace.

In the kitchen, they prepared plates side by side, and they warmed up the tepid food in the microwave. They ate together in a comfortable silence. "Are you going to call your family tomorrow?" he asked innocently.

"Are _you?_" she shot back.

"Hell _no_." He forked up some turkey. "I just spent the past month with a lot of cousins who despise me for inheriting everything they wanted. I never want to see any of them ever again."

Her eyes flashed. "I'm the family failure and I can't _stand_ being pitied. I'll be perfectly content to spend Christmas _alone_, thank you very much." Her voice was frosty, but he could see the underlying hurt there, the little broken pieces of her that still ached because she felt she had let everyone down.

He touched the back of her hand. "Perhaps we could spend Christmas alone together?" he suggested mildly. The gift in his pocket was both heavy and light. He would wait until tomorrow to give it to her. After all, the presents were meant to be opened Christmas morning, weren't they? "We can watch some cheesy Christmas movies and drink hot chocolate." His touch warmed not just her hand, but her soul, and his eyes were dark and intent upon hers. Her heart picked up its pace. "I'll be your new family, just for one day."

She met his black eyes, the gems that she had missed so, and said, "I think that would be nice."

He smiled. "I'll be there at the usual time, then. Marshmallows and _A Christmas Story_ in tow."

She nodded and swallowed the lump that budded in her throat. She finished eating quickly, and they said goodbye with another tight hug passing between them. Her truck pulled out of the driveway with his voice echoing through her mind:_ I'll be your new family_.

* * *

She opened the door the next morning to a sleepy-eyed Diaval who, as he had promised, carried a bag of marshmallows and a DVD with him. What she had not expected, though, was the small, carefully wrapped box cupped in his hands. "Merry Christmas!" He boldly kissed her cheek, and she prayed he didn't notice the heat that rushed to her face. She poured them both mugs of hot chocolate while he put in the movie. He dropped marshmallows into his and left the bag open on the couch between them. "Are you going to open it?" he finally asked.

She stared at the tiny box. "I didn't get you anything," she confessed.

"Nonsense. You gave me the best Christmas dinner I've ever eaten, and that's definitely saying something, considering I grew up in the same house where my Gram cooked." He pushed it at her with an expectant smile and a twinkle in his black eyes. "Besides, you got me that good coffee pot for my birthday, and I didn't get you anything for yours, so we're even."

"That doesn't count," she rebuked. "My birthday is the day after Christmas. I never get anything for my birthday."

"Open the present, Maleficent!" He placed it in her lap. "You're intentionally being difficult to prove your superiority, and you've done it, so go ahead and open it."

She smiled and raised one shapely eyebrow. "Alright," she agreed elegantly, though her heart was bouncing around within her as if it'd grown wings. Delicate fingers tugged the ribbon free, and she was careful not to tear the paper if only to stall a bit longer. She pried the lid of the small cardboard box free. A silver necklace with a glimmering emerald dangled from her fingers. "Diaval," she breathed.

His voice came, nervous. "Do you like it?"

"It's beautiful." She carefully placed it around her neck. "You have more money than you have sense," she accused quietly. He blushed. His cheeks darkened even more when her lips grazed one. "Let's watch our movie now." He hit play, and she placed her hand in the space between their bodies. He took it in his own. When she began to shift her weight like she did when her back ached, he gently pulled her down, placing her head in his lap. When her voice came, it was almost inaudible. "Why are you so nice to me?"

He touched her hair. "You are always nice to me," he pointed out. She waited for a real answer. "I told you, you're my best friend. I like you a lot." He didn't dare tell her he loved her. He feared what it would do to her. He feared it would make her push him away. "And your horse was the best secret-keeper in the whole world."

She leaned into his warm touch without meaning to. For a long moment she was silent, content with his answer and adamantly watching the characters dash across the screen, before she asked, "What was the last thing you told her?"

She felt him stiffen. His voice was nearly noiseless. "It's a secret." He ran his fingers through her dark hair and felt the kinky muscles in her back, the places where nothing seemed to align correctly. "I'll tell you one day," he promised.

She sighed into his touch. The dull, throbbing knots built up over years dissipated beneath his fingertips. "Okay." She felt him trace one index finger down her spine in a way that elicited shivers from her. How did he always know just what she needed? How was his touch a balm to her open wounds? How was he able to make her feel like she meant more to the world than a simple reclusive cripple? Pale fingers gathered her hair in his hands and began to weave it into a braid. The sense of safety she felt with him tugged her eyelids closed, and she was asleep before she even realized she was tired.

Not half an hour later, he touched her shoulder. "Maleficent? What's this?"

She pushed herself up from his lap to examine the crumpled piece of paper he held between his hands. Her hair was tied back in the finished braid. She peered at it. Handwriting from some years ago was etched there in ink. "Oh." She hadn't needed it for months and months; she had long since memorized the scrawl. "It's the list of things the doctors told me I couldn't do."

He pursed his lips. "Really? No roller coasters?"

"That's only number three. It gets worse." She scanned over the paper and gave a wry smile. "No bicycles, no running, no ladders. No car trips more than six hours. No soft drinks!" She rolled her eyes. "You would be surprised at the lengths and details they forewent to keep me from living life like a normal person." Her head was almost resting on his shoulder.

"What's this one?" he asked, pointing to the title of a book with an author's name. "Did they forbid you from reading or something?"

"No." She blinked at the title. The book was somewhere, tucked in some closet or buried in some sock drawer. "It is a detailed book of positions that won't compromise the spine."

He stared at her a moment. "Positions?—_Oh!_" His cheeks colored. "Never mind, don't answer that implied question." He looked the paper over, scanning it up and down. He pressed his lips into a thin line. "I hear Six Flags is lovely this time of year."

"You aren't seriously suggesting—"

"Of course I'm not _suggesting_ it. We'll do it. We can take out this one, too. Two birds with one stone." He tapped the line forbidding six hour car trips. "I bet we can have almost everything on this list crossed out in a few months. We can prove them all wrong." His face curled into a smile. "I love seeing the look on people's faces when they get proven wrong." He got up. "Let's go pack our bags. We can leave tomorrow morning."

Her mouth fell ajar. "Diaval, you're insane. I don't—I'm not exactly amusement park material, and the doctors—my medication—I can't—"

He pressed a finger to her lips. "It'll take us all of a week. We'll watch fireworks on New Year's Eve. Happy birthday." He kissed her forehead and went to leave before she could chase after him. "I'll pick you up tomorrow—Ow!" He bent to rub his aching calf from where she'd slapped his leg with her cane.

She glared at him. "Diaval! You're entertaining delusions of grandeur!" He stopped and stared at her blankly. "I am _incapable_ of sitting through a car ride that could last anywhere close to sixteen hours. I am medically _forbidden _from getting on an amusement park ride. Taking off to California or wherever the hell you want to go is ridiculous at best and insane at worst." She swallowed hard and tightened her grip on her cane. "I know you think I can do a lot of things that I can't do. You don't want to believe that I have a permanent disability. But trying to prove your fantasies to me will not work." She grated her teeth. "I am _crippled,_ Diaval, and you can't_ fix_ that. I'm sorry if that bothers you."

His Adam's apple bobbed. He clearly struggled to produce words for a moment before he whispered, "I'll pick you up at eight." She let a heavy sigh and closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to bud and swim. Something—either his fingertips or his lips—brushed against one severe cheekbone. There was the sound of a door closing, and then there was nothing.

She opened her eyes. The list was gone; he had taken it with him. He had completely lost his noodles. But then she felt the pretty green jewel resting on her sternum, and she knew if he had lost it, so had she. She relied on him like a fish needed water, like a horse needed freedom. "I guess I'm going to Six Flags," she murmured under her breath. She turned and hobbled down the hall to begin to pack her bags.

* * *

"Diaval, I'm not joking! I have to take a freaking piss!" Maleficent squirmed in her seat. She'd eaten four Advil in about as many hours. Her back was threatening to combust upon itself. And she had never needed to pee so badly before in her life.

He refused to pull over. "You have an hour and a half more to go. If we stop now, you'll have to start from scratch. Now, if you would try to go asleep, you'll have a greater chance of making it all the way." His face was determined, his jaw set, his eyes hard against her pleas. "Or you can pee in a cup like little kids do, if you want. I am going to cross this thing off of our list before we get to California."

She crossed her arms. "It's not _our_ list," she grumbled. "It's _mine_, and if I can't stretch out, I won't be able to walk tomorrow."

"That's okay. We've got plenty of time to ride tomorrow, too." He smiled at her softly, his eyes twinkling as if he was very clever.

She sighed. "I'm thirsty."

"You're thirsty _and_ you have to pee? Just keep adding to the list. I've got a cooler in the back seat, if you're serious, and if you're just trying to get out of the car, tough." He cleared his throat. "There's a packet of their rides in the glove box. You pick out which spectacular thrill coaster we are gracing with our presences."

She sighed and did her best to stretch out her long limbs. "Is it possible to die of an Advil overdose?" she asked rhetorically while she reached for the packet of papers. Her back moaned in protest, and she resisted the urge to pop it. He reached over to smooth over the knotted muscles. "Watch the road!" she snapped. Her pain was leaking into frustration which could only be vented toward him. His hand didn't leave her back, and his eyes didn't leave the stretch of interstate before them. Quietly she began to sift through papers. "I know you've already picked out which one you're going to drag me on. I suppose it would be the one that's most likely to kill me, right?"

"I want you to ride the Medusa." He grinned cheekily at her. "Reviews said it's the best ride in the park."

She rolled her eyes. "I suppose that means it's the most dangerous for a crippled lady with a cane. Very attractive."

His expression darkened. "I wish you would stop using that word." Satisfied that he had worked the kinks out of her muscles, he put his hand back on the wheel. She sighed and leaned her head back. She didn't feel like arguing with him. She hated fighting. For someone who had once been able to battle wills with a fourteen hundred pound beast, she balked at the idea of arguing with her neighbor. She tried to best to wriggle onto her side to take the weight off of her back, and eventually managed, the seat belt pinning her down in an uncomfortable but not necessarily painful position. "I'll wake you up when your time's up," he promised.

She watched him through half-closed eyes. His face was nothing if not handsome, rigid scars around his eyes highlighting his large black eyes. She couldn't remember ever staring at him so intently before. He turned to her for a moment, and her eyes fell all the way shut, but his handsome face was imprinted on the inside of her eyelids.

She didn't think she slept. The car lulled her into the more peaceful parts of her mind, but she was still awake, and she felt it when they drifted off an exit and took a few sharp turns into what she assumed was a gas station parking lot. Her eyes were about to open when his warm hand touched her cheek. She didn't dare move. "Beautiful," he whispered. He didn't say anything else to her, and she realized that he thought she was asleep. After a few more minutes, the warmth left her cheek, and he touched her shoulder. "Maleficent, wake up."

She was certain she opened her eyes too quickly. She cleared her throat. He climbed out of the car to fill up the tank, and she hobbled to her feet. Wordlessly, she left toward the small building and ducked inside. A short, bored teenager peered at her with sleepy gray eyes. She wondered what time it was while she scanned the room for a bathroom sign. The girl pointed it out to her with a single finger, and she nodded appreciatively. After relieving herself, she grabbed two packs of gum, a bag of potato chips, a few candy bars, some suck candy, and several bottles of water, and she headed to the cash register.

The sleepy-eyed teenager was not, in fact, short. She was confined to a wheelchair behind the desk. She rang her up quickly, and Maleficent turned to leave, but a small voice stopped her. "Miss?" the girl asked quietly. She turned back to face the girl and waited. "Does…Does it ever get any easier?" Her voice was meek, almost terrified of breaching her anger.

Maleficent's eyes wandered from the girl down to her cane and out the glass window. Diaval was shoveling his hands through his hair, looking thoroughly exhausted but still incredibly happy while he pumped gas. Before she met him, she might have provided a very different answer. "It does," she confirmed softly.

The sleepy eyes crinkled around the edges in a smile. "Have a nice trip, miss."

She left the gas station.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: This will be my update for at least the next week, if not longer. I'm going to band camp (no electronics allowed except tuners), and then I have a lot of summer homework that I procrastinated on up until this point, so it will be quite awhile before you guys get another update. Sorry. :(**

* * *

The sound of chains clinking over tracks made her heart pick up. Her palms were slick with sweat. Diaval's breath was heavy beside her. "Did I ever tell you that I'm afraid of rollercoasters?" he finally asked. They started up the slow, steady incline that would be sure to send them plummeting to near death in a few minutes.

"No."

Up, higher, higher, higher. Tree branches came close about her face. She could feel the blood draining out of her face. People were starting to stick their hands up in the air. They were nearing the crest of the hill. "Maleficent, in case I die of a heart attack or something, I need to tell you something." She looked to him and prayed she didn't appear as utterly terrified as she felt. Diaval's face was white as a sheet, his eyes rounded in saucers. "I love you."

Her mouth opened to question him. The floor dropped from beneath them. A sharp curve pitched her into Diaval's chest. And she suddenly understood _why_ rollercoasters were on her list of forbidden things.

Maleficent never screamed. _Ever_. Screams were something programmed out of her since she was a child; any sudden noise could spook a horse. Her father used to tell her that horses spooked at two things—things that move, and things that don't. She clenched her jaw and fisted her hands in Diaval's shirt, his words long forgotten. The wind roared by her as it once did so many years ago, but she was not distant from the thundering of the machine below her. Strong arms secured around her. She never screamed. But Diaval was positively deafening her. She tried to focus on the sound of his shouts rather than the snatching and whirling and twirling of the hefty machinery.

Her gut began to churn. Their angle shifted abruptly, and she had the briefest feeling of weightless. Blood gushed to her head. _I'm upside down_, she thought, her thoughts strangely disconnected. The strongest pain pulsed not from her back, but from her scalp, and she realized that Diaval had grabbed fistfuls of her hair in terror.

The ride screeched to a stop as soon as it had begun. She was still clutching at him desperately. His arms were folded protectively over her back and tightly grasped her hair. "Diaval," she mumbled. He grunted. "It would be kind of you to relinquish my hair about now." Their lap bars lifted, and she reached to unhook the seatbelt that bound them together. Her fingers were jittery and didn't want to work right. He looked like he was going to be sick. She stepped out of the car and steadied herself against it.

Diaval crawled after her and fetched her cane, leaned against the wall as it patiently waited for them to finish their attempted suicide. His face still broke into a grin, sickened though it might have been, and he weakly said, "Two things in three days. We're on a roll." He stumbled a bit to the right and nearly trampled an eager child.

Maleficent grabbed his elbow to steady him. "_I'm_ supposed to be the one with balance problems," she reminded him. "Since you haven't yet succeeded in killing me, let's find a place to sit down."

He slicked his hair back in the way that he knew she found charming and led her to the bench just outside the entrance to the ride. With a shaky hand, he took the list out of his pocket and crossed out two words: "_No rollercoasters_". "Wanna go again?" he asked her, his eyes twinkling softly.

"No," she replied adamantly. Arching an eyebrow, she questioned, "Do you?"

His eyes widened. "Hell _no_, but I would go again if you—Oh, bumper cars is also here! C'mon! We can knock that out, too!" He made a move to leap to his feet, but identifying her lack of enthusiasm, he sat back down on the bench. Her patient emerald-gold eyes trailed over him, and he amended, "But not right this second, I'm guessing." He didn't touch her like he wanted, though he could tell she was hurting, and he felt a prickle of guilt in his chest. Was she angry at him? Maybe. But then her head settled on his shoulder, and he decided she wasn't. He placed a warm hand on her back and rubbed up and down, applying little pressure, just enough to make the knotted muscles relax. "The swinger looks fun," he commented. His pulse had finally calmed in his veins.

"Diaval, right now I am trying to decide whether or not I want you to take me to the hospital, so please shut up." It felt like her spine had twisted like a wire in her back, all out of line, and as the muscles relaxed the nerves seemed to contract more. She had taken Advil before she got on the ride—a decision she was now regretting.

His jaw clamped shut, and he pushed a bottle of water into her hand. He placed one light finger at the nape of her neck and trailed it down her spine. She shivered in response. He could feel the ripples on the bone, the places where it wasn't shaped quite right, through her shirt. "I'm sorry," he apologized quietly. Maybe she was right; maybe he expected too much of her, pushed her too hard. She wasn't a broken thing that needed to be fixed. But he would never,_ ever_ let her live believing she was crippled, and if that meant he had to put her in some damn ice skates and drag her across a frozen pond, he would do it.

She took a few deep breaths against the blinding white pain until it ebbed into its usual dull ache. His apology met her ears, and she wanted to reject it; it wasn't his fault that she couldn't bear up under something as simple as riding a rollercoaster. It was certainly his fault that she had been on the rollercoaster in the first place, but his eyes were guilty enough without her throwing a snarky remark at him. Her legs and back protested as she stood, but Diaval grabbed her elbow, and his eyes were intently scanning her every nook and cranny with earnest concern. His words from atop the rollercoaster echoed back at her: "_I love you_." She forced a smile. "Bumper cars, then?"

* * *

"Bumper cars with you are no fun."

"Driving sixteen hours to California with you is no fun. Staying in two shitty hotels isn't fun. Riding rollercoasters isn't fun. Trying to outsmart medical professionals isn't fun." She couldn't believe she was actually letting him take her on a_ carousel_. But yet there they were, about to have a seat in one of the fake carriages pulled in a circle by fake horses.

He bowed and gingerly pressed his lips to the back of her hand. "My lady," he stated warmly, gesturing toward the seat. She rolled her eyes and sat down. He sat beside her. "We should ride that one water ride."

"You are _not_ getting me wet."

"Fine. You can watch. I'm riding that water ride."

Twenty minutes later, when Diaval was in a raft with several strangers, she peered down at him from the viewing deck. With a smirk, she dropped two quarters into a geyser machine and squirted him in the face. He shook out his hair and glared at her. She lost sight of him around the ride's bend. A soft smile adorned her face.

A strikingly familiar voice startled her from her thoughts. "That wasn't very nice, Mal."

She whirled around on him. Her grip on her cane tightened till her fingers were white. Blindingly hot memories brought tears to her eyes—Silver, _cracking_, pain, sirens, _can't breathe can't breathe_, heavy, snorts, _can't move_—before she managed to squeeze out. "What do you want?" She wanted to lift her cane from the ground and beat him with it, but she found herself relying on it heavily. Her knees were weak. Her mouth was dry. She needed Diaval. Where was he? He had to hurry. He would see her, he would steady her, his presence would strengthen her like it always did…And that was when she realized she relied on him more heavily than she had ever trusted her cane or her pills.

Stefan took a small step toward her. She took a larger one backwards. The railing pressed against her back. Cornered. _Trapped_. "Is that any way to talk to an old friend, love?" He reached to touch her hand.

She leaned away from him. "Don't_ touch_ me." Her voice, her damned voice, quavered and gave away the utter terror budding in her chest. He wore the same cologne he had sported all those years ago. He still wore it too heavily, enough to smother her in it. _"Enough to kill a horse"_ her father once joked. How right he had been.

"Mal, the past is in the past." His breath was rotten with cigarette smoke. She could see the yellow in his teeth, the staining of his fingers, the premature wrinkling of his skin. "I've been wanting to see you. I thought, maybe, since all this is behind us, we could go out sometime."

She stared at him with her mouth agape. He wanted—He wanted her _back?_ He did _this_ to her, and then when he realized that his reasons were petty, he decided that he wanted her? "You bloody bastard." She lifted her cane off of the ground. If she swung it hard enough, she could knock him out. Granted, she would probably fall down in the process, but it would be worth it.

A warm hand touched her back. "Do you have a problem?" Diaval growled at the stranger. He was thoroughly soaked, but his eyes were fierce as ever.

Stefan backed away with his hands up. "Not at all, not trying to cause any trouble. Just trying to talk to an old friend, is all." Fake charm laced his tone.

_Old friend_. Maleficent could watch the realization snake across Diaval's features. His eyes heated in utter fury. His jaw set. His fists clenched. He drew himself up to his full height and took a step toward Stefan, who leaned back with fear in his eyes. "You stay the _fuck_ away from her, you fucking bastard. Or I will beat the snot out of your head." His hair was prickling. He could feel the gazes on him of people skirting around what looked like the beginnings of a fight. "Get lost, prick. I'll beat you bloody, I'll—"

Her hand on his arm stopped him, and her voice came, icy and composed, toward Stefan. "I would love to take you up on your offer, _old friend_," she spat. "But as you can see, I am otherwise occupied." She flipped her hair in a girlish way and smooched Diaval's cheek loudly. Her arm curled through his. "Come along, love." She lightened her tone and smiled at him brightly. "We have some swings to ride." She pulled firmly on his arm, and with a final venomous glare at Stefan, he obediently followed her in the general direction of the swings, letting themselves get lost in the crowd before the man dared pursue.

"Why didn't you let me hit him?" Diaval whined while they clambered into a double-seated swing. "I've never hit anything but pigs before, but c'mon, there's not really a _difference_, is there?"

"If you hit him, we would've gotten kicked out of the park. If you would've stepped out of the way and let me knock him unconscious, the perks of being crippled would have let us continue to enjoy our day."

"All you had to do was _ask_." He pulled their lap bar down and held onto her cane. The ride lifted off of the ground, and he tensed in response. "How high does this thing go exactly?" he mused.

She rolled her eyes. "You're afraid of heights _and _rollercoasters?"

"You hated the rollercoaster as much as I did."

She sighed and looked away. Diaval's constant banter was more tiring than spending the whole day chasing about an amusement park. An amusement park which happened to house the man she once loved. Written in her memory was the day she had last seen him; he had been younger, wearing jodhpurs, faint beard stubble instead of the full wiry thing he now bore. His show number stood more prominently in her memory than her own. 456. He sat astride a black colt, several years younger and suppler than Silver. If it was a competition of fit horses, he would have won easily.

It had never been a competition of fit horses. It had always been a competition of the smallest, lightest person with the stronger will of steel, and sabotage wasn't an uncommon thing in that world; almost weekly, a horse was drugged or some rider's food was poisoned before a show. But none of them had ever come with repercussions hers had brought. And no one had ever walked freer than Stefan, not even when a girl from Washington won rather than him.

Diaval's hand wriggled into hers. "Hey." He squeezed her hand. "Did you really have to lick me in the face, though?"

"I did _not_ lick your face."

"I'm pretty sure I felt some tongue." His hand was tense on her cane, nearly white with force. He was afraid. But he was still beside her, facing his fear. She wished she could do the same for him. "Do you want to drive tonight or get another shitty hotel room?"

Her eyelids threatened to fall closed at the thought of a bed, any bed. But she really would prefer her _own _bed. "Whatever you prefer. You're my ride, after all." Wherever she slept, she would dream.

He gave a soft smile. "I promised you fireworks in California, did I not?" His thumb traced the back of her hand. "Tonight, we are going to break the no soda rule. Coke or Pepsi?" he teased. "Unless you'd prefer to break the one with alcohol, of course."

She frowned. "I can't have alcohol. Conflicts with my meds, makes me sick."

"You mean like a hangover?" he joked. She raised a challenging eyebrow at him and didn't respond. "Alright, I'll go ahead and cross that one off. And with pregnancy, let's don't and say we did, shall we?" He slashed out those two lines. "Here, dancing. We can take care of that while we're here. Soda and dancing sounds fun under the fireworks welcoming the new year." He paused. "Why aren't you allowed to have soda anyway?"

She snorted. "I had a bat-shit crazy doctor who was certain I would have arthritis by the time I was thirty if I drank anything but milk and water. He also told me no coffee, but I didn't even write that one down." The swings got only higher, and Diaval visibly paled under the sun. He shivered against the wind that whipped through his wet clothing, but she couldn't say that she regretted squirting him the face with the geyser at all.

He tightened his grip on her hand and cane. His shoulders were tense and rigid. She let her chin rest on his shoulder in an attempt to soothe his nerves. He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. She was with him, and she wasn't scared. He wouldn't be afraid as long as she was by his side. His heart nearly choked him. _I am in love with her_.

* * *

He poured her a Coke on ice and waited patiently with earnest eyes. She rolled her eyes and lifted it to her lips. "Happy?" she questioned after taking a long sip.

He sat down next to her at the small table in the hotel room. "I'm always happy when I'm with you." He reached for her hand. "C'mon. We're supposed to start dancing now."

She looked away, but he didn't miss that her eyes misted over. "I don't dance," she sullenly replied. He wrapped her thin fingers in his own, ignoring her attempts to pull away. "Diaval, I'm serious. Cripples are meant for walkers and wheelchairs. Not dance floors."

His other hand wandered to her hip and started to pull her up. "I never said we'd go to a dance floor." Her thin form was easily lifted. "We can dance in here." He pulled her closer to him and dissuaded her attempt at resistance. A soft tune whistled from his lips. Then, quietly, he started to sing. "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine?" he rumbled in his voice of an oncoming storm.

She reluctantly let him pull her to his chest. A hand touched the one she rested on her cane, and his fingers pried at hers until they loosened. "Diaval, I can't." She was starting to panic. "I can't, I—" Her hands wound around his shoulders and grappled for support that he gave willingly. Her chin rested on his shoulder. The cane clicked dully against the desk where he placed it. The space between her and it seemed to grow, but with the distance, Diaval's touch grew firmer and warmer and safer, and her fear ebbed away.

Their bodies swayed in soft synchronization. "Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor? Won't you please, won't you please, please won't you be my neighbor..." Their feet shuffled together. He began to sing his ballad again until the pounding of her heart had quieted, and his breaths tickled her neck. There was rumbling in the distance where the fireworks exploded and lit the room through the window. "Happy New Year, Maleficent."

She couldn't reply for fear of shedding the tears that swam boldly in her emerald eyes, and she squeezed him tighter, hoping he understood that she returned the sentiment.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Okay, I lied in the last AN. THIS will be the last chapter before I go to camp! I spent the whole day slaving over it so I could put it up for you guys. :) I'm afraid the ending isn't as good as the last one. Sorry. But I will spend any free time I have at camp working on the chapters in my notebook! I will not abandon this story! I have been having a lot of fun writing it. **

**I really relate to this story personally; as a person who grew up with horses, I know what it's like to fly. And flying is when you sit astride half a ton of muscle at a flat gallop and open up your arms and let the wind tear through your hair and bring water to your eyes and you can't hear anything but the roaring of your own heart. Over the last few months, my boarder forced us to sell my Arabian mare and stole my miniature horse, and that was where the muse for this story came from; I cried the first time I saw the movie because I know what it's like to lose the ability to fly.**

**But that's enough of blathering about my personal life. Just thought you guys might be entertained to know where I got the idea for this AU. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

* * *

Diaval ignored his soreness and started to load their bags at dawn. Maleficent was still curled comfortably in the bed next to his. After loading everything they needed, he watched her carefully while waiting for her to wake. Her cover had pooled in the floor beside her, and her shirt rode up in the back, exposing the scars from numerous reconstructive surgeries. She shivered. He picked the cover up from the ground and placed it over her, but her face curled downward in response to his well-intentioned actions. Her hands fisted in the sheets. Soft grunts came from her throat.

He couldn't stand to watch her in discomfort. He touched her shoulder and whispered, "Millie?" When she didn't stir to wakefulness, he squeezed her a bit harder. "Maleficent, wake up." Her eyes jolted open, breath caught in her throat. He lifted his hand from her. "Sorry. You looked like you were having a bad dream."

She blinked at him. She had been having a bad dream, but she couldn't remember what it had contained. His warm black eyes chased away her demons before she could even identify them. She rubbed her eyes and reached for her cane. Pain throbbed dully through her back, and she regretted the rollercoaster and bumper cars with a passion. For a moment, she was muddled between reaching for her purse that held her Advil or her cane. _Cane first. _ The cane always came first. Her palm was calloused from carrying it for so long. She took the pills dry and blinked to Diaval. "Time to go?" He nodded. "And I suppose you didn't think to leave me an outfit to change into?"

"Men don't have those problems, so of course not, Millie."

She shoveled a hand through her mussed hair. "Millie?" she questioned finally. More than her back was sore; her legs moaned in protest with each slight movement, her neck burned with whiplash from the rollercoaster, and her feet were snarling at her to sit back down.

He shrugged. "Your name's a mouthful."

Her eyelids dragged closed. She was too tired to debate with him, so she headed to the door. "Let's get to the car so I can go back to sleep." She ripped her brush through her hair haphazardly and waited for Diaval to lead the way. Of_ course_ he was silly enough to pack up their shoes. They limped outside with bare feet and crawled into the old Buick. She reclined the chair as far back as it would go and turned on her side to watch him while he pulled out of the parking lot.

His face was pale and haggard, mouth turned down in a frown of concentration. The wind whirred by them. The air was much cooler than the day before—chilly, even—and he clicked the heater on low. "Shit," he mumbled, turning it off. It was broken. She let her eyes fall closed and tried to ignore the chill crawling over her.

When she awoke again, a blanket was tossed over her. She sat up. Her back cracked loudly, and she winced. Snow spiraled around outside. "Where are we?" she inquired, wondering how long she'd been out and how far they'd traveled. She crossed her legs and fought the immediate need to pee.

He rubbed his eyes with one hand. "I don't know. I think we crossed the state line into Nevada an hour or two ago." He looked positively exhausted. "The roads are all shit, most of the exits are closed, there have been wrecks all over the place." He was barely going thirty-five down the interstate, crawling after van. "A truck did a three sixty in front of us earlier. I thought we were going to die."

She struggled to find an upright position that didn't compromise her bladder or her spine, but there was none, and she ended up having to pee with an aching back. "If you think we should stop, I'm just your passenger. Do what you have to do." She wasn't afraid, not really. She trusted Diaval. "But I_ am_ in need of a restroom break." She reached for her purse and pulled out the unfortunately empty bottle of Advil. "Did you take my pills?" she accused.

"They're for headaches, too!" he protested feebly. She glared at him. "You eat them like candy. I just had two."

"The _last _two!"

"There are more in your suitcase…which is in the trunk." He looked like he was about to bash his head into the steering wheel. His hands were tense, hair mussed.

She touched his arm. "It's fine. We'll get them whenever we stop." Her back argued her point, but he was obviously stressed. She mightn't have been concerned, except for the fact that the winds were strong enough to push the car across the ice, and if they wanted to get out alive, he needed to have a cool head. "I can drive if you want me to," she provided.

He took a deep breath. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great." He coasted off to the shoulder of the road and waited for the car to slide to a stop before getting out. Maleficent wasn't silly enough to think that she could stay upright out on the slick concrete. She slid across the seat and settled in the driver's seat, carefully adjusting everything the way she liked it. He stumbled into the passenger seat and handed her a bottle of Advil. "Here. Don't kill us, and try not to wreck my car."

"Got it." She took the pills dry and drove down the road at a positively crawling pace. He pushed up the divider between them and scooted over to the middle seat. "What are you doing, back-seat driver?"

"Positioning myself so I can hit the brake." He spread the blanket over both of them. "Actually, I just want to share your body heat, if it's okay." He lowered his head safely out of the range of the mirror. "I'll be nice and quiet so you can focus," he promised. Not ten minutes later, his head was slumped onto her shoulder and he was fast asleep. She smiled softly at him, even if the road was slippery and dangerous.

Several hours later, she managed to find an open exit. The car was almost completely out of gas, and it chugged to a halt in front of a gas pump. "Diaval." She touched his cold arm. "Wake up. C'mon, time to get up."

He stirred. "Where are we?"

She shrugged. "Somewhere with a gas station and presumably a bathroom." She grabbed her cane and opened the door, gazing debatably at the ice that coated the ground. She could either piss her pants in the car or break her neck trying to get to a toilet. Going with the second option, she put a grip on the side of the car while sliding across the space. She found that her cane could also be useful as a ski pole in another life. But in this life, it served as her only method for getting across a parking lot coated with death trap.

"Wait, wait; don't leave me out here in this mess by myself." Diaval scrambled after her only to bust his ass on the ice. He shakily found his feet and grabbed her arm. "Now, use that fancy stick of yours and drag us across this ice to the safety of a bathroom and an infinite supply of Coca Cola."

Her cane had been described as many things, but _fancy_ was certainly new. He pushed her forward a bit, and she leaned on her cane. "Diaval, you are perfectly capable of getting yourself across this ice without my help."

"You overestimate me." He placed his hand on top of hers. "Share this, will you, Millie?" She rolled her eyes and huffed, but didn't respond. They managed across the ice relatively unscathed and headed toward the bathrooms. After stocking up on a fair share of food and drink, they struggled back out to the car, and Diaval filled the tank and drove them to the small town's only hotel.

"Ya'll lucky, this the last room we got." The manager's breath reeked of cigarettes, and his teeth were yellowed and crooked. He dangled a key at them and fed them a price which Diaval accepted without argument. They struggled to the room with the few bags they actually needed and opened the door.

A sharp breath whistled out of his lungs. "I guess I'll go get the blankets." The bed—a single bed, after they asked for a double room—was only full size, and he knew Maleficent wouldn't be comfortable sharing it with him.

She dropped her bags and curled up on one side of the bed. "Get in the damn bed." She laid her cane next to the bed and smoothed her hair down. With a sharp glare at him, she pulled the covers back. He gulped and dropped his bags on the floor, obediently placing himself in the bed next to her.

For over an hour, they rolled and tossed and did everything in their power to keep from touching each other until Diaval finally, with a grumble, brought her head to his shoulder. She was rigid and tense, but he didn't relent, and she finally slid her hand over his stomach and lay still. He was soft and warm and safe, as always, and his heartbeat lulled her to sleep.

* * *

It was almost five o'clock when Maleficent glanced up at Diaval's face and found him blinking blearily at her. "Hey, pretty thing," he murmured.

She stiffened. "_What?_"

He reached to rub his eyes. "Sorry, I say dumb things when I'm tired."

"No, what did you say?"

His hands stilled and he looked directly at her. "I said, hey, pretty thing," he told her honestly. She rolled off of him and turned her back to him. "Wait, Millie, I'm sorry." He reached for her, instantly missed her warmth against his chest. The room was nearly as cold as the outside temperature. "I didn't mean to—I'm sorry." He touched her shoulder. "Is pretty not the right word? I can call you any word you like. Beautiful, gorgeous, stunning." He pulled on her. "C'mon, it's freezing, I'm cold. Cuddle me, please." After a few more moments of being ignored, he asked, "What's so bad about being honest?"

Her voice was almost inaudible when it came. "I fail to see how you think any creature that relies upon a stick for survival can have a measure of beauty."

He sighed into her neck. His arm slipped over her abdomen. "Your cane is not a part of you." She didn't reply. "It's no more a part of you than a bible is part of a Christian, or an ear of corn is part of a farmer. It's an enabler and nothing more." He pressed his face into her hair. "Or do I have to make you dance again to get you to believe that you are _more_ than a broken back?" He looped one leg over hers and pulled it toward him. "I seriously will tickle you to get a response. I know no boundaries."

She rolled over to face him, but her eyes were closed, and her head was bent to her sternum. He wrapped his arms tightly around her. A soft kiss planted itself in her hair, and she shivered. "You are perfect the way you are, and I wouldn't have you any other way. If I had a time machine, I wouldn't give it to you, because I'm the selfish asshole across the street that couldn't stand to imagine a life where I never met you." He felt her face curl into a slight smile, but her shoulders were quaking. "And if that fucker _ever_ comes anywhere near you again, they'll be feeding him his meals through a straw." His hands began to prod at her back with their gentle, warm rhythm that always chased away her aches. She took a few deep breaths and tried to relax against his warm, safe embrace.

Quietly, her voice came to his ears. "All the doctors I've been to…chiropractors, physical therapists, pain specialists…you're the only one that can make it go away." _It_, it the constant ache, the dull throb, the emptiness that filled her chest when she awoke in the morning and the first thing she thought was _I need Advil_. The loss, the despair, at being unable to run and fly; the way she loathed the cane but still relied on it—these were the things he _fixed_ within her.

He closed his eyes and reveled in her closeness. It would be time for them to get up soon, to leave, to go back home. "I guess I'll have to stay with you forever, then. If you'll have me." She didn't reply to him. He knew she was afraid, afraid of being manipulated and broken again, afraid of having even more wrongly stolen away. "Let's go home, shall we?" He looped one finger through the emerald necklace. Her warmth soothed his innermost turmoil, quieted his loudest demons. But even the most precious of moments had to end.

He finally forced himself to leave the softness of her hair against his cheeks in favor of getting home. She grunted in displeasure and rolled back over, hand flopping toward the bottle of Advil. Her cane found her hand, and she struggled upright. She turned her back to him and began to change clothes, and he politely averted his eyes to start organizing their bags. The slightest of glances showed him several pale scars curled into her silver flesh. He gulped and started to change for himself. He tugged on long pants and a jacket.

She ripped her brush through her hair while he pulled on his shoes. "That sounds painful," he commented at the sound of bristles tearing through.

"It is," she confirmed off-handedly with another firm jerk. In a moment of bravery, he crawled across the bed to her and wriggled it from her hand. She tensed beneath his touch. He carefully gathered her dark brown hair into his hands and combed through it. "Am I not allowed to do anything for myself?" she asked with some annoyance.

He frowned. "But I like your hair. Tell your independence complex to shut up while I have my little bit of fun."

"You had your fun at that amusement park." Exasperated, she crossed her arms across her chest and huffed loudly. It wasn't worth fighting over. She could feel his hands at the base of her neck while they gathered her locks. It made a tingle run down her spine, and it wasn't the usual tell-tale tingle that warned she would soon need more Advil, but something different altogether. He began to braid it quickly with a diligence she didn't know he had, and he tied it at the end. "Can we go now?" She was careful to keep her voice haughty and impatient. Fear snaked back into her heart as it always did, and she hated herself the more for it. She wanted him so _badly_. It was an itch she couldn't scratch, an ache she couldn't scare away or dull with Advil. She wanted him as much as she feared him. She needed his arms as much as she had ever relied on her cane. And she was so, so afraid.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll admire my handiwork in the car." He released the braid from his hands, and it fell against her spine. She grabbed her purse and a bag and led the way out. Diaval trailed after her, eyes thoughtful. "Don't horse people have to wear helmets?" he finally asked while they skidded out to the car.

"Yes. Are you trying to picture me with helmet hair?"

"I was actually pondering the acrobatics one would have to perform to make it fit. You have a _lot _of hair, Millie," he pointed out.

"I am aware," she replied drily. "It took three or four people and a lot of bobby pins. Once I thought my parents were going to divorce over whether or not I could get it all cut off for the bigger competitions." She wondered when she had resigned herself to her new nickname. She couldn't remember agreeing to it, but she couldn't say that she blatantly disliked it or anything. It was far better than the usual _Mal_ that everyone dubbed her. Mal was annoying. Millie…Well, at least it was original.

He tried to imagine her with shorter hair, shoulder-length or even shorter. The image didn't fit. It made her cheekbones soften, made her eyes lose their cutting but serene edge, made her lips thin out, until the image in his head was not Maleficent at all but just a woman with short hair. "Who won that battle?" he finally asked.

"Neither of them."

"Oh?"

"I didn't need a helmet anymore after that."

The air whooshed out of his lungs. "_Oh._" He hadn't meant to bring up that particular subject matter; they didn't speak of it directly very often. He never knew what to say to her after it was mentioned. What was he meant to say? _I'm sorry that your ex was a bastard who killed your horse and broke your back. I'm sorry that you consequently had to run from your family to escape the guilt. I'm sorry that you had to give up your dreams._ He caught himself on the edge of the car from a near nose-dive. "Do you want to drive?" he asked.

"No." She climbed into the passenger side with more elegance than he'd had in his entire lifetime. He put on his seatbelt and offered her the blanket. She slid next to him and put on the middle seatbelt so it could cover both of them. "Wake me up if the weather gets bad." She promptly rested her head on his shoulder and let her eyes fall closed.

* * *

But the weather didn't get bad, and when they both resigned themselves to hold their pee and ignore the inherent need to stretch their legs, they realized they would make it home in a few hours. The heater was still broken, but the radio worked well, and Diaval kept some soft classical turned on for the times they were close enough to the towers for it to work. She kept the space between their bodies thin and warm.

He turned into Ulstead and hummed down the silent road. It was the black of night, nearing midnight, and the town was quiet. The lack of streetlamps was a disturbing fact that many complained about but no one ever fixed.

Diaval pulled into Maleficent's drive way. Her head rested on his thigh, long legs folded against her. He stroked the top of her head and waited for her to awaken, unwilling to do it himself. But minutes ticked by, and he realized she wouldn't wake on her own. "Millie. Hey, wake up. You're home."

Emeralds gleamed up at him. "Why would I leave when you're petting me so nicely?" she deadpanned. He gave a tired smile and helped her sit up. She fumbled for her cane and grabbed the bags she could hold. He helped her with the others, and they entered her house. It was warmer than the outdoor temperatures, but Diaval knew he couldn't stay long, or he'd stay forever.

He placed her bags on the couch. "This was a good trip," he commented stupidly.

She nodded. "Yes. It was." He couldn't identify the note in her voice. He turned to leave, but in a much smaller tone, she asked, "Did you mean what you said on the rollercoaster?" Her eyes were vulnerable, expression almost childish in innocence while her mind echoed with the three words he had whispered to her on the crest of the hill. _"I love you." _

He turned back to face her. His hand wandered to the one that didn't rest on the cane. "The last thing I told Nikita," he confessed, "was that I was falling in love with you, and I wished she would be around to help me court you the right way." He bit his lip and scanned over her unreadable face, which began to shift and shape, where the expressions twisted and turned into so many things that he couldn't begin to comprehend the depth of the emotions written there. "I love you," he told her.

She pulled her dainty hand from his grasp and turned away. "Goodnight, Diaval."

He closed his eyes. She hadn't rejected him outright, but he felt like she had. It hurt, it ached, it burned. His heart was breaking bit by bit, and he knew it wasn't her fault, and he knew it would take her time. He would wait. He would wait forever if he had to, because she was worth it. "Goodnight, Maleficent."


	6. Chapter 6

Diaval wondered if his current actions would be considered breaking and entering while he brewed himself a mug of coffee in Maleficent's kitchen. He wasn't _breaking_ anything; he used the key he knew she kept under a brick by her door. Even so, he decided to make her some and put it in a thermos as an apology before he left for work. Finding a pen, he quickly scrawled a note onto a post-it and stuck it to her thermos.

He wandered down the hall to her bedroom and peered in through the cracked door. She was sound asleep, curled up like a cat at the foot of her bed. He gave a soft smile and placed the thermos on her nightstand. Gathering the discarded blanket into his arms, he placed it over her with all the careful tenderness of a husband doting on his wife. Gentle fingers smoothed her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her pointed ear. He loved watching her sleep. But he had to get to work, else his job might get given away. He blew her a kiss and whispered, "I'll see you later." Her ruby lips curled upward slightly. He hoped she was having a good dream. He left her home with a creaking of boards and a chink of a locking door and spirited away, as though he'd never been there.

She awoke an hour later and rolled over to reach for her Advil and cane, but her movements stopped at the sight of a thermos of coffee. She peeled the post-in note from the cup and read it with bleary eyes.

_Dear Millie,_

_Jetlag, huh? I hope you don't mind that I invaded your quaint little abode to brew myself some coffee. I promise nothing's broken. Have some coffee as an apology. Two creamers and three teaspoons of sugar, right? I'll come by after work and make sure you're not dead or anything. Who knows, maybe I'll bring you some take-out. _

_Love, _

_Diaval_

Her eyes lingered on that word. _Love._ One long finger touched it, as though expecting it to disappear, but it didn't. In her head, she could hear his voice echoing back at her. Some part of her expected her memory would've preserved his speech to her about beauty, or the soft way he spoke of his final secret given to Nikita, but instead her mind reverberated with his oncoming storm voice singing, "I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you, I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you…"

She was thinking too hard. It was making her back hurt. She grabbed her cane and took her pills with a gulp of coffee. Too much sugar. She drank it anyway and got dressed for no reason at all. Her bedroom was too dark and quiet, and she was lonely, but she was too tired to go to town. She realized just how pointless her life was; with Nikita gone, she served no inherent purpose. She ate, showered, slept, burned electricity. She gardened in the summer. But as far as really doing something? She hadn't had a cause for life since the accident.

These thoughts made her aching worse, and she limped outside to the mound of ground under which her beloved mare rested. A large stone rested there, and she pursed her lips; Diaval hadn't told her that he'd invested in a marker. It was a simple thing, not too large or obtrusive, and had only her name engraved there. Maleficent gave a small smile and sat down in the snow across from the rock. "Hey, old girl," she whispered. She stuffed her gloved hands into her pockets and pulled up her hood. "Diaval told me your last secret." She wondered for a moment if she should consider herself insane for speaking to a stone. "I wish I knew all of the secrets he told you." Her head bent to her chest. "I'm scared, Nikita. This would be so much easier if you were here. I could really use some moral support right now." Her eyes flickered to the barn that hadn't been entered since the mare's body was lowered into the ground. "He thinks he's the most intelligent person on this planet. He's vainer than a peacock. He always slicks his hair back in this way that he thinks I find charming."

Was this what she was going to do? Sit here and bash him to her horse, try to talk herself out of loving him when the decision was already irrevocably made? "But he…he has this air about him. He's honest and loyal. I think he's the kind of friend that would tell me outright I was ugly if he thought so." Her lips quirked into a smile again at that. "Sometimes, when he thinks I'm not paying attention, I feel him looking at me. His eyes soften, and his jaw goes slack, and it's almost like he goes to another land entirely." One hand absently fondled the emerald gem around her neck, twirling through the chain. "God, Nikita, I thought he was going to_ kill_ Stefan. I never would have thought him to be violent, but he had him trembling in his boots. He was so utterly enraged." Her eyes analyzed the little jewel. She wondered how Diaval had selected it, if he'd chosen specifically _it_ and not a sapphire or a diamond or some piece of fake plastic. She had plenty pieces of fake plastic in her jewelry box. Stefan had always been wonderful at giving them.

"He told me he loves me," she whispered weakly, as though admitting it aloud was draining in itself. Her forehead rested on the icy stone. "I can't—I can't love him. It's too dangerous." She shook her head. "I won't lose anything else to a man. It's not worth the aggravation or the pain. It's not worth the risk." She was beginning to rant at herself. Maleficent could come up with a list three feet long of reasons she shouldn't or couldn't do something, and she was doing it now. "Even if…" Where did those words come from? She shouldn't have been considering an _if!_ "If something happened between us, it wouldn't work. He'll get tired of me eventually. He'll get sick of trying to fix something permanently broken, or he'll go back to his family to raise hogs, or…something will inevitably happen, Nikita, I'm telling you." It was starting to snow again. "Something will happen and ruin all of the good that we have." She shook her head against the stone and cursed the single hot tear that froze on her cheek. "He would want something I can't give. Engagement, marriage. Children. A family. Things I will never be able to provide."

She rested her forehead against the stone and let slow tears fall for the greater part of two hours when she realized that her clothes were sodden, her extremities were numb, and it was almost lunch time. Inner confliction was driving her positively batty, and she had nothing to do to distract herself. Movies were boring, couldn't hold her attention. Her books only reminded her of him. She tried to clean house—even went so far as to climb unsteadily on a chair to dust the top of the cabinets—but ended up asking herself if Diaval would like it like that. "What the hell is my problem?" she muttered to herself. When her back hurt too much from house cleaning, she ran herself a hot bath.

The water was warm, and the room smelled of the fruity soap she used. Bubbles burbled around her. She closed her eyes and relaxed to the sound of the pounding from the faucet. Sleep played on the edge of her mind and with it brought strange thoughts of warm hands caressing her, soft kisses around her jaw, feet tangling with hers. Her eyes snapped open. She quickly turned off the water and shoveled her hands through her hair. _What is wrong with me?_ Her heart was skipping in her chest like a toad, and the unhealthy thoughts refused to leave her be. Warm hands, soft lips, slicked back hair. She struggled out of the tub and dried herself quickly. No peace of mind to be found for her.

She passed the following hours by digging around through her movies until she found her _Final Destination_ collection, and she watched the first two with mild interest. The third was just coming on when Diaval knocked on her door, the promised takeout in his arms. "Hey! Long time no see!" His face was in that goofy, lopsided grin that he so often wore. "What's—Woah, what are you watching?" He turned to the television to watch the kids on the rollercoaster, watched the teens spiral over the railing as the seat belts broke and the train derailed. "I'm glad I didn't see this beforehand," he muttered.

She gave a small smirk. "_Final Destination_ three. I'm sure you would enjoy it." She shoved her daydream into a dark crevice of her mind and locked it away.

He offered her a takeout box. "I'm sure I would enjoy anything if you were with me. Take your food before it gets cold." They made it into the kitchen and put their food on plates. Keen, black eyes flickered around. "It looks different." He promptly tripped over the chair she'd used to clean the cabinets and knocked the duster to the floor. "Oh. That might explain it." He sheepishly picked up the scattered assortment of things he'd knocked over.

She rolled her eyes. "My days must be filled with some form of entertainment. If that entertainment happens to be cleaning a house that will only get dirty again, so be it." She forked some noodles and watched with some irritation as they unraveled from the prongs before she could get them in her mouth. Diaval was uncannily skilled at shoveling them; juice dribbled down his chin, and he wiped it away with his sleeve.

He snorted. "You are welcome at the bookstore any time, Millie. Conversation would certainly kill the boredom of selling a book a day. I don't even know how he keeps the doors open." A shadow cast over his face, and Maleficent pursed her lips. She knew that, unlike many people, he liked his job, if only because he loved books. "We're closed on Fridays and Saturdays now," he reported.

She frowned. "I'm sorry for not being sorry."

"Huh?"

"The less time you spend at work, the more time you are here entertaining me." She raised one eyebrow at him in a teasing challenge.

He rolled his eyes. "I suppose I'll be welcome to sleep on your couch when I get laid off and can't pay my bills anymore, then?"

"You already seem to have invited yourself over in the mornings," she replied. Her mind began to whirl with thoughts of it, of what would happen if he lost his job and decided to move in with her. _He would be welcome on more than my couch._ She almost choked in surprise that her brain had managed to conjure a thought like that.

He laughed. "I ran out of coffee to brew in my wonderful coffee pot, and you have a lifetime supply." He threw a mushroom into the air and caught it with his mouth.

They continued to talk lightly until it was dark outside, and Diaval returned home. Maleficent refused to admit that as soon as he left she felt emptier. She missed the way his eyes sparkled and twinkled, missed his raspy voice, missed his smile and banter. Her dreams were filled with him, the taste of him in her mouth, the sight of him behind her eyes, and she awoke sheened in sweat.

Her nights and days continued similarly—dream of him, wake up and brew coffee for him, have dinner ready for when he came over in the evenings. Some days, he would come home early and help her cook, and other days he brought her some takeout and helped her put away the freshly cooked food for the next day. He grew in boldness, frequently pecking her cheek when she wasn't paying attention. Every night, before he left, he told her that he loved her, and she never responded. Her face turned downward in shadow, and she was too scared to tell him what she really felt.

One Friday, he drove up to her house in the morning. She peered out at the old Buick from her window and greeted him outside. The snow had finally melted into mud, but the day was relatively warm. "Car today?" she questioned.

"Yes." He took the mug of coffee and handed her a paper bag of pastries. "C'mon. We've got two things to cross off the list today, and I want to be done by nightfall." At her leery look, he grabbed her elbow. "Come on, let's go!" He pecked one severe cheekbone and pulled her toward the car. "We'll get Shoney's or something afterward, assuming neither of us ends up with broken limbs."

He couldn't be dissuaded, so she reluctantly climbed into the car after him and put on her seatbelt. There were what appeared to be two shoeboxes in the backseat, and her curiosity nibbled at her mind. "I don't suppose you'll tell me which actions we're crossing off the list today."

"I can assure you it has nothing to do with positions," he teased. "It's about half an hour away." He backed out of the driveway. "No peeking!" He pushed her hand back in her lap as she reached for the mysterious shoeboxes. "You'll find out when we get there." His hand stayed on top of hers, and after a few minutes, she let her dainty fingers curl through his.

Half an hour later, they pulled into an empty lot behind an abandoned factory. Maleficent got out of the car and stretched her legs. Diaval popped open the trunk and placed a bicycle before her with a devilish grin. Her mouth opened a bit, staring plaintively at the metal creation before her. "No," she stated firmly. He nodded. "No," she repeated. He patted the seat. "Diaval, I don't know how to ride a bike."

"Then it's time you learn." He pushed it closer to her, and she took a reluctant step toward it. "I'll hold it up the whole time," he promised. She looked scared, and he couldn't believe he was staring at the same person who once sailed over jumps six feet high astride a creature that weighed more than half a ton. "I swear it's not scary. It's like running, only smoother."

She nodded, clearly still conflicted, and slid one long leg over the seat. Diaval placed his hand on the small of her back and steadied her. His other hand gripped a handlebar. "Go on, then," he encouraged softly. His breath was warm against her neck. This was nothing like the rollercoaster, where they'd been pitched together in mutual fear. This was something unique altogether, in which Diaval's confidence in himself and in her helped to alleviate the terror that curled in her belly. "I've got you."

Her feet lifted from the ground, but his grip on her didn't waver, and she pedaled forward a little bit. Her hands trembled. She knew without his support on her, she would easily topple to the ground, but he didn't loosen his grip on her. He helped her turn around in a wide curve. They smoothly rode back toward the car and almost ran into it when Diaval tripped. He returned her cane to her and laid the bike down on the ground. "Now, one more thing before we get some food." He pulled out the two mysterious shoe boxes and opened them, revealing two pairs of skates.

She automatically took a step away from him, shaking her head rapidly. He ignored her and began to untie his shoes. He slipped on one skate and then the other. Upon standing, she watched his usually graceless limbs glide smoothly in a way she had never seen before. "Sit down. I'll help you put them on." He grabbed her elbow and tugged her back to the car, the skates adding a few inches to his height. She let him push her onto the seat, and he dropped to his knees before her, slipping off her shoes with care. He laced up her skates and stood. "Your brakes are on your toes." He pulled her up by the elbows too quickly for her to reach for her cane and placed his hands steadily on her waist. She grasped his shoulders tightly. Her breath was hitched, not wanting to go in or out, and her jaw was clenched against the fear that snarled at her to sit back down and stop entertaining his delusions of grandeur, the fear that yelled _crippled, crippled, crippled_, while she tried to focus on keeping the wheels beneath her.

Diaval had no problems skating backwards, and she thought if she would let go of him he would probably do some kind of fancy twirling to impress her. But he made no move to release her. After pulled her around the empty lot a time or two, he let them slow to a stop near the middle of the circle. His breath warmed her cheeks, hands clasped around her back. Their crowns rested against each other. "I told you that you weren't crippled," he whispered. She bent her head a bit, and he leaned closer to her. "I lo—"

A firm finger caught his lips, and she shook her head. "Don't. Don't ruin it." Her gaze was intent on his with pain and fear.

He waited for her finger to leave his lips, and he softly continued, "I don't say that because I want to hear it back, Millie. I say it because I want to make sure you know." He kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms tighter around her. Then, with a grin, he whispered, "Neighbors are people who are close to each other, so that's what we are right now, you and I. We're neighbors."

She gave a light laugh against his neck in spite of herself. "Stop quoting Mister Rogers. It's not helping."

"How could Mister Rogers's quotes _not _help? He's like the grandpa that always accepted you unconditionally, no matter who you are or what you do." Diaval pushed off gently, letting them drift back toward the car. "I like you just the way you are." He raised an eyebrow at her in challenge.

Maleficent saw the rut in the concrete too late. His wheels caught in it, and he floundered for balance for a moment. He released his grip from her waist, but she wouldn't relinquish her hold on his neck, and his weight dragged her down with him. There was a dull thud of his head striking the asphalt. Their eyes locked while she sprawled across him, and in unison they demanded, "Are you alright?" They stared back at each other, awaiting an answer, before they both chuckled.

She bent her head in laughter and slid her hands from around his neck. He wasn't bleeding, thank the heavens. One hand touched his cheek in an odd moment of tenderness, and soft lips touched the tip of his nose. "No broken limbs?" she asked him.

"I don't think so." He sat up against the dizziness. "Get off me. I told you we're not crossing off positions today." She slid off of him obediently with a small smile and steadied him with cool hands, concern not leaving her face. He waited a few minutes before leaning forward to unlace his skates. She did the same. They struggled to their feet together, and Diaval helped her to the car, depositing her in the driver's seat. She reached for her shoes and put them back on.

"You should've told me to bring Band-Aids for the blisters," she teased. She reached for her purse and took some Advil. "Where are we going?" she asked him in all seriousness, offering him the pill bottle for what appeared to be the onset of a migraine.

He accepted the pills gratefully. "McDonalds," he replied. He supported his head on his palm and held his eyes closed. She gently probed through with his hair with adept fingers, double-checking to make sure he wasn't bleeding. Fingers rubbed at his neck. He leaned toward her soft touch.

She lifted the armrest between them and pulled him down so his head rested in her lap. They pulled out of the lot, one hand rubbing the back of Diaval's head while the other steered them toward McDonalds. Once in the parking lot, she ruffled his hair. "Are you sure you're alright?" she queried, gathering his head into her arms.

He smiled cheekily. "I'm fine. Just enjoying this attention." Before she could be angry, he sat up and kissed her cheek. "Let's get some lunch…dinner, shall we?" He got out of the car and walked around, taking her hand in his. She glared at him, but she didn't pull away. He gloated to himself in a silent victory and walked into the restaurant together. "What do you want?"

"Cheeseburger and fries."

"Cheeseburger as in Big Mac?"

Her eyes widened a bit. "No, a cheeseburger as in a regular cheeseburger. With fries."

"Are you sure you don't want a quarter pounder?"

"Diaval, I swear to god—"

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding, Millie. What do you want to drink?"

"Water."

"Coca Cola it is." He stepped up to the register and ordered their food. She went to get their drinks, filling her own with Coke at his request. He got them a booth. She went to sit opposite him, but he reached for her hand and pulled on it, gesturing to the place beside him with his lip slightly poked out, eyes wide with hope. She sighed and sat beside him with a small smile. Her cane clinked to the ground at her side.

She ate quickly, figuring that they could've picked worse places to eat dinner. They shared ketchup. He was a double-dipper, but she didn't mind. He was warm at her side, so warm, and he smelled like chopped wood and books. His smell was enough for her to want to bury her face into his chest and never stop inhaling.

Several giggling children ran by, and before she could stop them, a little boy grabbed her cane and thwacked his sister over the head with it. She fell to the ground and started to cry. Another little boy ran under their table and crawled into Maleficent's lap as if she wasn't a total stranger. His thumb was in his mouth, and he watched with wide eyes as the other boy—presumably his brother—continued to wreak havoc around the restaurant.

The mother pushed through a line of people. "David! Put that down! You don't take other people's things!" She slapped the cane out of his hands, and it clattered to the floor. "Apologize to your sister," she ordered, pulling up the little girl with brown curls. "Say you're sorry!" she barked, and the boy did so reluctantly. "Where did Daniel go?" she mused, looking around.

The boy in Maleficent's lap went stiff and scooted back a bit. She touched his fair hair with one soft hand and spoke up. "I think he's right here, ma'am."

The relieved woman picked up the cane and walked over to her. "Is this yours?" Maleficent nodded. "I am _so_ sorry." She lifted her son into her arms, and he promptly began to cry. "If I can get you anything…"

She shook her head. "No, it's fine." The girl and older boy clambered around the harried woman's feet, each cheering, "_Mommy, mommy!_" for some reason or another, and the woman had dark bags under her eyes. "You have a beautiful family."

The woman gave a breathy laugh. "I'll trade you lives for a day; you'll see just how beautiful these three little imps are." She shook her head. "I really am sorry." She herded her children out of the restaurant before they could cause any more damage.

After a few moments, Diaval asked, "Would you take her up on that? If it was possible, I mean."

She turned to him and leaned close to his ear so her lips brushed his skin. "I don't think I could be happier in a life like that. I'd rather spend the rest of my days as a cripple with you." She hadn't meant to admit that. She hadn't meant to say it aloud at all. But it had left her lips.

He smiled and offered her a French fry. One arm snaked around her waist and pulled her closer to him in the booth. He rested his crown against her temple, not saying a word. He didn't need to.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Ick, this chapter is shorter than I wanted it to be. But it was going to be way too long otherwise, so I just cut it in the most reasonable place. Anyhow, be prepared for some angst and drama. The chapters after this are probably going to be pretty damn fluffy, so just bear with me. ;)**

**This chapter is also a product of sleep deprivation that I scrawled in my notebook while at band camp, so the writing is quite a bit weaker than usual. Sincerest apologies to all my readers who expect my best all the time. **

* * *

The next weekend, Diaval showed up at her house with his usual grin and slicked back hair. He wore a sweatshirt despite the warm spring weather, and before she could even hand him a mug of coffee, he told her, "Get a coat. It's cold where we're going today." He kissed her cheek and handed her a paper bag of pastries. "It's an hour drive. We'll get dinner on the way home." He refused to tell her exactly where they were going, but she didn't mind; the surprise was part of the fun. _Fun?_ Had she really come to consider it that?

She put on a jacket and grabbed an extra pair of socks. Her purse was chock full of Advil; she could assume that she would need it, regardless of what crazy suicidal stunt they would commit together. They clambered into his car and headed out of Ulstead.

The road was silent and relatively deserted. They didn't talk much; neither knew what to say to the other. Diaval unfolded the rumpled list and scanned over the things that were still uncrossed. Some, he knew, would never be crossed out—positions, for example, or running. Others were still possible, like hiking. The top one, though, was an enigma. No horse riding. He had no doubt that she was physically capable of sitting on a horse long enough to take a picture. Her physical capabilities weren't the ones in question. But he would do nothing to hurt her, and if that meant ignoring the top line of the list like an elephant in the room, he would do it as long as he needed. He knew that she would fight him over it. She might quit altogether, just leave him and whatever friendship they maintained hanging out to dry, if he pushed it. And he wouldn't risk that. He was far too selfish. These dark thoughts drove him to take her hand. She accepted his touch gratefully, and he relished in the stolen glances from the corner of his eyes. She was so beautiful. Her skin was fair, silvery; her cheekbones were high and almost wing-like. Her eyes were like emerald jewels, gold streaks highlighting them like the dawn sky, so similar to the gem that hung around her neck. More than anything—more than _anything_—he failed to understand how she couldn't comprehend her own beauty. She, the fairest creature he had ever seen, thought that her appearance was somehow ruined by a simple stick that she perhaps leaned on too heavily. She was almost ethereal in beauty, but all she saw when she looked in the mirror was her cane. He was determined to take the word _crippled_ out of her vocabulary, even if—

A truck squealed out in front of them, all spinning tires and spewing exhaust, and it cut off his thoughts like a knife. Diaval jerked his hand away from her in order to swerve and avoid a collision. "Watch the road!" Maleficent snapped, tightening her grip on the handle. "And stop looking at me." She pushed her shoulder blades together and winced. "Are we almost there?" she demanded.

He tried to calm his throbbing heart, and he blushed at being caught staring at her. Leave it to her to get cabin fever from an hour car ride. "Yuh-Yeah, fifteen more minutes." A warm hand soothed the pain between her shoulders. The knotted muscles twisted and curled before finally smoothing over into her flesh, and she relaxed into his touch. He wanted nothing more than to flip up the divider between them and pull her close to him, let her rest her head on his shoulder, let their fingers lace through each other and finally be at peace. But here, there was no need for warmth to pass between them, no blanket to share. Only the two of them. He kept his eyes on the road and forced himself to keep from kissing one severe cheekbone. Grating his teeth, he took the next exit into a city much larger than Ulstead, a place known as Slaughtersville. The roads were humming with the life of midday traffic, and soon they were at a standstill. Diaval's face curled downward into a frown. "Maybe half an hour?" he muttered weakly. Her eyes fell closed, face expressionless. "Hey, I promise it'll be worth it when we get there." He reached to rub her shoulder, and a smile graced her face.

She leaned toward him and flipped up the armrest between them, scooting next to him. He curled his arm about her waist and restrained the urge to cry out in victory when her head fell onto his shoulder. "Don't look so smug," she scolded teasingly.

"Why shouldn't I?"

She didn't reply, instead inhaling deeply into the crook of his scarred neck. Goosebumps erupted over him and a chill went down his spine, and he resisted the urge to rip his eyes from the unmoving road before him and pepper her face in kisses. Finally, she told him, "You smell good." Her eyes widened slightly. She hadn't meant for that to come out of her mouth. Curse him for making her so comfortable, for letting her tongue loosen. But he really did smell good, even if it would only inflate his vain ego.

He finally gave in to the temptation to kiss her temple. "Thank you." His eyes were soft and warm with affection, and he continued, "I would return in kind, but there are far too many things about you that I could compliment for me to pick just one."

"You are quite the sycophant." She rested against him and let the steady rise-fall of his chest soothe her.

She faked asleep until she felt the car chug to a stop and heard the tell-tale words: "We're here."

She sat up and opened her eyes, which quickly focused on a road sign. Slaughtersville's Year-Round Ice Skating. "No way in hell." He ignored her rebuke and left the car. She followed him suit.. "Diaval, you're insane. I'll hurt myself—or somebody else—in there." God, why was he so smart? He knew the only way to get her inside was to walk away from her protests. He knew she would follow. She wondered when they had really gotten to know each other so well. And she wondered why she continued to follow him into the skating rink.

Diaval helped her lace up the skates. "Do you want me to have an ambulance on standby?" he joked.

She turned to meet his teasing gaze with a stern one. "I hate ambulances," she retorted. "I would rather take an hour in a car than spend five minutes in one of those wailing machines."

He chuckled. "Alright, alright, no ambulances." He pulled her up and helped her staggered over to the icy floor; her balance had dissipated and vanished, abandoned beneath their chairs in the form of a cane. Hesitation was written on every fiber of her face. "I've got you," he assured her. He placed both hands on her and steadied her. One of her hands held a vice grip on his shoulder while the other grasped the wall. "See, it's not bad."

No, it wasn't _bad_. It was _horrible_. It was freezing. It was slick. It was dangerous. The ice was drawn into ruts under her feet. The whole place screamed _risk of paralysis for cripples_. "Three laps and I'm done," she mumbled.

"Let's make them count, then." Grip not wavering, he shot forward, dragging her reluctant form along for the ride. She feared that her feet would surely buckle beneath her, slide in opposite directions, but Diaval didn't let an inch of space come between their bodies. The ripples in the ice seemed to smooth over as they picked up speed. Cool wind blew her hair back. He laughed at her expression of pleased surprise. They flung sharply around a curve. She clung to him desperately. Her back moaned in protest of the extra stress, but she didn't tell Diaval to stop. This was the closest feeling she'd had to flying since the accident. The feeling was addictive, a drug, a passion, something that could never be sated; her cravings hadn't been sated for a very long time. She lost count of the laps they spun together, arms entangled, bodies touching.

Eventually they slowed with flushed cheeks and slightly runny noses. "What was that about three laps?" Diaval breathed, panting from exertion. His face was so close—he was so close—that his nose was about to touch hers.

"I don't quite rem—" The kid came out of nowhere, spiraling like a truck without snow chains. His foot caught hers from behind. The blades on their skates clashed in a clank of metal. The boy managed to right himself and kept skating, but Diaval's eyes were filled with horror and focused only on Maleficent as her arms left his. Her limbs flailed outward. Her legs scraped about uselessly for friction. Gravity pulled her backward, backward, in slow motion. He dove after her far too slowly. A sickeningly loud crack met his ears and resounded through his brain when she collided with the ice. He dropped to his knees beside her, mindless of the way the ice wet his pants. Before he could muster even a word, her face contorted in agony and a weak, pained whine rose from her throat.

He grabbed her hands and folded them across her chest off of the ice. "Maleficent? Can you hear me?" Her mouth opened to reply, but a cry emerged instead. He bent over her. "Okay, hush, hush. I'm going to take you to the hospital." He slid one arm under her knees and the other beneath her neck. "This will hurt a bit. I'm going to pick you up, okay? Hold on if you can." His voice was low and urgent and nearly panicked; his fingers trembled beneath her. He lifted her as gently as he possibly could. "I'm sorry," he whispered. She was heavy, but he hardly noticed the weight. He managed to skate over to the edge of the rink.

"I'll call 911!" someone boldly announced.

"No!" Diaval shouted, stilling the chaos that was about to ensue between the other patrons. Softer, he continued, "She won't ride in an ambulance." He doubted she would be able to protest in her current state, but he wouldn't let them make the situation worse for her. "I can drive her." He quickly unlaced their skates and discarded them. Their belongings flashed by him—shoes, purse, cane—and he struggled to piece together what was worth leaving behind. Some people tried to help, but ended up getting in the way. The purse was over his shoulder, and someone accidentally thwacked him in the calves with her cane. He lowered her into the car seat and reclined it as far as it would go.

When he finally cleared a path through the people—they seemed to have multiplied to watch him carry the injured woman to the car—he threw on his flashers and hurried onto the street. She was silent except for the occasional whimper or choked sob. Her face was tight, drawn, pale as a sheet, and blood trickled from her bitten lip. Traffic began to pile up and soon Diaval was laying on his horn and dodging bullets left and right until he was finally forced to come to a standstill with the rest of the cars. "Shit," he hissed. Bowing his head, he was unable to do anything but gently stroke her hair. "Millie, I'm sorry. Hang in there. Please hang in there." He bent to kiss her forehead. "I love you."

One thin-fingered hang latched onto the front of his shirt, pulling him down ever so slightly. "Dia…" she whimpered through clenched teeth. He tried to hush her, but her grip on him tightened. "Diaval." He bent closer to hear her nearly inaudible voice. "I—I…" She was fighting unconsciousness. He touched her forehead. "Luh-love you." She reached for him, lips moving but uttering no speech until he let his brush hers. She relaxed into the short, sweet kiss and her eyes fluttered closed.

He pulled away. "Lie still." He kept one warm hand on her shoulder, not daring to touch her back. "I'll get you to the hospital soon. They'll fix you right up, I promise." He couldn't remember ever breaking a promise to her before. No, that was false. He had promised to keep her safe, hadn't he? Even if not verbally, he had sworn to keep her from being defeated by the terrible list. The _stupid_ fucking _list_, the only reason they were in this mess. It was easier for him to blame the list than it was to blame himself. "We'll be there soon," he whispered.

_Soon_ turned out to be an hour and a half, but Maleficent's pain had not subsided; over every bump and knock in the road, she whimpered or cried out and Diaval wiped away her pained tears when it grew too much for him to bear, seeing her in so much pain. She could only give a soft whine when he lifted her thin form and carried her inside, where they were greeted by a harried nurse with a wheelchair. He filled out the paperwork as best he could while they took her in for x-rays. The last he heard of her voice for almost an hour was the sound of her whimpering his name.

The nurse approached him quietly from where he paced in the waiting room. His nerves had several of the other people on end. "Sir, please calm down."

"Is she alright?" he demanded, ignoring her platitudes.

She touched his arm. "She's going to be fine," she soothed. "Some of the mechanics in her back were knocked out of line." She presented him with the x-rays that he couldn't understand, and she blathered in Latin for a while before finally saying the words he wanted to hear. "The chiropractor was able to realign everything good as new. She's on some heavy pain killers, but once she's awake you can take her home." She rattled over instructions at him—keep her off her feet for three days, several prescriptions that she probably wouldn't take anyway, other things that he didn't care to follow—before letting him into the room.

She was pale and tiny in the bed, face drawn into discomfort. He took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Millie," he whispered.

He didn't expect her to stir, but she did. Soft emerald eyes met his. "Diall," she slurred. He scooted closer to her and touched her cheek. She squeezed his hand with a weak effort and gave a weary smile. "Hah' choc'late?"

He blinked at her. "Yes, I'll make you some hot chocolate when we get home." He stroked her cheek with gentle fingers. "How do you feel?"

"Sweepy." Her other hand touched the back of his, stilling its movements, and she leaned into the warm embrace. He gave a slight smile. "Love you."

He bent to kiss her forehead. "I love you. Go back to sleep."

"Stay?" Her eyelashes fluttered in protest, not wanting to succumb to slumber.

"You couldn't keep me away." She seemed to relax at his words and stilled into a short but deep sleep. When she awoke an hour later, she was positively loopy, but Diaval managed to coax her into a wheelchair. She was discharged, and he put her in the car. Day had long bled into night. "Millie, I have to drive." He was glad that the medications had taken away her pain, but her uncharacteristic behavior was throwing him off.

She smooched his cheek sloppily and rested against him. "I can drive."

He laughed. "You have specific instructions not to drive for the next twenty-four hours." He wiped away her sloppy kiss with the back of his hand and placed a much neater one on her cheek. One arm curled around her waist. "Lie down. You shouldn't strain your back."

"Will we get hot chocolate?" Her head obediently hit his lap, but she didn't look anywhere near sleeping.

"I'll fix you some tomorrow morning, I promise." At least that was one promise he knew he could keep. A gentle hand stroked her hair, hoping to soothe her into restfulness, but it was to no avail.

When they finally pulled back up into her driveway, he gathered her tall frame into his arms for the third time that day and carried her inside. Her limbs were splayed at awkward angles, making him struggle to get her to bed, and her fits of giggles did absolutely nothing to assist him in the matter. But he managed. He placed her there on the mattress and helped her under the covers before turning to go back to the car and gather the things they needed inside, like her cane and her purse, but her voice drew his actions to an abrupt halt. "Diaval?" He looked upon her with pursed lips and concerned eyes. "Will you give me a bath?"

He tried his very, very hardest not to laugh at her. "In the morning." Hopefully by then she would be less drug-addled and more her usual self. If she wasn't…well, that would just be another broken promise. He turned to go once more, but he was once again stopped by her soft, vulnerable voice.

"Please don't leave me." Emerald eyes were finally weary as they met his. One hand patted the space on the bed next to her invitingly. "Stay." He looked from her to the door and back again. Their things could stay in the car until morning; he had no intention of leaving her by herself anyway. His feet moved toward her by their own accord. He lowered himself onto the bed beside her. She wriggled closer to him beneath the covers and kissed his lips. "Thank you." She nestled her face in the crook of his neck. "Love you."

He whispered with internal confliction, "I love you too." Did she mean those words? Of course she didn't. They were a result of the drugs. But there was still the hope. There was always the hope. The hope was what kept his heart alive when she let him pull her close and didn't slap him away. It was in the little pecks he placed on her cheeks and the way she sometimes scolded him for staring too long. He had hope.

Slurred with drowsiness, she asked him, "Can you sing that Mister Rogers song for me?"

She fell asleep to his voice of an oncoming storm rumbling darkly, "It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor…"


	8. Chapter 8

"Oh god." She lay flat on her belly with her face buried in the pillow, and she let the piercing throb from her back wash into a dull ache over her entire body. Her mind managed two coherent words: _cane_, _Advil_. One hand reached for her cane, but it was missing. The other slapped the bottle of Advil and quickly shoveled two pills into her mouth. "Cane." Her voice crackled hoarsely. Where was her cane? Memories began to trickle back at her little by little—cold and an odd feeling of joy, a blindingly hot white pain that stole her breath and all her senses, Diaval's distant voice and more pain, more pain. Afterwards was fuzzier; she could vaguely remember fighting unconsciousness because she thought she might be dying, and if she was dying she needed to tell Diaval the truth. Had she told him? She couldn't recall.

Then came the more lucid memories, riding home in the car, saying things that she thought made sense but really didn't. He answered each of her drugged musings very seriously and refrained from laughing much. She grated her teeth. Had she really asked him to give her a bath? And had she really kissed him?

As if hearing his own name in her thoughts, Diaval peered into the room. She closed her eyes too slowly, and his face broke into a broad smile. "Good morning, sunshine." There was a mug in his hands. Thoroughly enticed, she reached toward what she prayed was coffee. He sat beside her on the bed and helped her sit up.

The dull, deep ache churned into a piercing pain, but she ignored it and again reached for the mug. Coffee was far more important than soreness. His large hand steadied her dainty one. She eagerly took a gulp and nearly spat out the sweet taste of hot chocolate. After recovering, she choked out, "That wasn't coffee." The sweetness, while unexpected, was not unpleasant, and she took another sip. His warm hands were a comfort, and his scent was the same that had lulled her to sleep the night before.

His dark voice rumbled quietly, "You asked me for hot chocolate no fewer than five times yesterday." Black eyes were soft with emotion, and he kissed her temple.

Her breath hitched in her throat. She had admitted everything to him. Her drug addled state had confessed her innermost feelings, and now he wanted more. How could he not? He would expect more, more that she couldn't give, more that she was terrified to even consider. She had to explain it to him. He would understand; Diaval understood everything. "Diaval, I—What I said yesterday, it wasn't—I didn't—it just—wasn't—" Her words wouldn't come together, and he silenced her with a finger to her lips.

"Maleficent." He said her full name firmly, and his obsidian eyes bore into hers like black fire. "I know you didn't mean what you said. I'm fine with that. Don't freak out." Amusement danced around the corners of his eyes, trying and failing to cover up the hurt that was written in the deepest crevices of his face.

The hurt on his face hurt the soft places of her insides, the places that knew she was breaking his heart. He didn't deserve her paranoia. He didn't deserve her inability to confess her feelings. He didn't deserve any of the shit she dished up to him on a daily basis. And she had never, ever, in a million years, deserved the loyalty with which he doted on her. Her hands caught his face and words began to spill from her tongue before she could control them, but she found she didn't want to control them. "No, you're wrong. I meant what I said. I meant it. I love you." She couldn't believe herself. Raw, exposed, weakened before him. Her fingers trembled where they touched his face. "But I am scared, Diaval. I am _terrified_ of loving you. Do you understand?"

Of course he understood. He always understood her. His strong, warm arms enveloped her and pulled her against him. Lips brushed away the single tear that ran down her cheek. He buried his face into the crook of her neck and softly hummed their favorite song into her pointed ear. His warmth chased away her pain. She could feel him shaking against her, quaking, and saw the way his lips trembled. He stilled them by pressing them to her forehead. "I'll kill him." His voice was thick and gruff in her ear. "I'll make him beg for mercy at your feet if he ever comes near you again."

She grabbed his chin and tilted it downward. He closed his eyes, sheened over with tears, and she leaned forward. Closer, closer, breaths fanning over each other's cheeks, until she brought their lips to touch. He rested his crown against hers and gave a soft smile into her ruby lips. It was a smile that she could not help but return. He pulled away from her first. "I love you," he whispered. Her eyelashes brushed his cheek. She didn't say those words in return, but it was alright. They were closer than they were before. "Do you want me to make you some coffee?"

"No." Her grasp on him tightened.

He chuckled. "Okay." He pulled her down onto the mattress next to him. She snuggled closer to him while he rubbed her back and touched her hair. After a few moments of silence, he broke it with a random thought that bounced out his mouth. "We would make one badass romance novel."

She snorted. "If you write a book about us, I'll break up with you." Her eyes and tone were playful.

"Does that mean we're together now?"

"I suppose," she consented softly. He gave a satisfied grin. "Now shut up so I can sleep."

"No! I'm happy, I wanna talk about it," he teased, fondly smoothing down her tangled hair. "I'm glad you're the way you are, I'm glad you're you," he sang while he reached for her brush on the nightstand.

"Diaval, I swear to god." He stopped singing, and she went still as he pulled the brush through her dark locks. His deft fingers scratched her scalp in the way that made a tingle crawl down her spine. A tension that she didn't realize she'd been holding lifted from her shoulders. She'd never imagined a world where it felt so relieving to be in his arms. She'd never realized how natural it was to kiss him. She'd never thought that he would take away the fear that plagued her, never knew that his scent could calm her qualms. She'd never known how much she trusted him. And it felt so good to finally be at peace with everything in her heart.

* * *

She couldn't believe how he doted on her. She also couldn't believe that he was too daft to borrow a wheelchair from the hospital for the three days that he refused to let her walk, but that was beside the point. He could cook, and he threatened to force feed her if she didn't eat. He brought home the drugs they'd prescribed but she refused to take; otherwise, he didn't leave her house. He ran her baths and carried her to the bathroom, and he waited patiently for her to call for him. The first night she made the mistake of trying to stand on her own. He'd hidden her cane away anyway.

"I am perfectly capable of brushing my own hair without your assistance." Just one more day. She had to survive on more day of being carried about like a baby doll, and then she could boot him out of her house and resume life as usual, preferably spending the rest of it with no ice skates.

"I like brushing your hair," he protested. He sat behind her on the bed and combed through her tresses gently. Nimble fingers curled a braid into her hair. "It's one of the more enjoyable parts of being your most loyal servant."

"Self-appointed servant!" she refuted.

He pecked her cheek. "I would have it no other way." He tied the end of her hair and wrapped his arms around her belly. She let him pull her against his chest. "What would my lovely mistress want for lunch?" he whispered into her ear.

His breath made her tingle. She loved it and hated it at the same time. "A nap," she retorted. His warmth made the pain in her back dissipate. She thought it was as manageable as ever—her supply of Advil was still in working order, after all—but Diaval swore that the nurse told him three days and he would be damned if he let her hurt herself worse. He thought it was his fault, though he hadn't voiced it.

He rested his chin in the crook of her neck and chuckled. "I'll make you a PB and J, is that okay?"

"Sounds great." She pulled his arms off of her and curled up in a ball like a cat at the foot of her bed. He tucked the covers around her. She grunted in response and listened to his footfalls as he left the room. She instantly missed his warmth beside her, but she comforted herself in knowing that he would bring her some hot chocolate. He had discovered her secret love of sweet things, and he brought her hot chocolate as often as he did coffee.

She touched her cheek where he had just kissed it and contemplated what they had now. What _did _they have now? Nothing (_everything_) changed. He still told her he loved her (_but now he knew she wanted to say it back_). He still kissed her cheek when it was unexpected (_but now sometimes he kissed her lips and many times he didn't take her by surprise.)_ He looked at her the same way he always had (_but now he tended to voice his every thought about her, from how he liked the way the light struck her eyes to he thought she had a very cute nose_). He still scolded her for the use of the word crippled (_but he hadn't mentioned the list since the accident and she hadn't seen it in his hands_.)

He returned with the promised sandwich in one hand and a mug in the other. A quick kiss pressed onto her brow. "Are you napping yet or do you want to eat first?" She sat up and reached for the mug eagerly. He grinned and rubbed her back while she slurped at the hot beverage. "I suppose that's an answer." She glared at him. "I love you." Why did he always say that? How could it hurt her and heal her at the same time? Why did those words always leave her feeling breathless? Why did she never return them even though she longed to do so? These were questions she couldn't yet answer.

After a few more moments of silence and breadcrumbs littered the sheets, she mumbled, "Thank you." His dark eyes questioned her, and she continued, "For taking care of me." She leaned forward to give him a brief kiss on the lips.

"Would you have expected me to leave you to fend for yourself in this dangerous jungle?" he teased.

"It would have been acceptable."

Her tone didn't hold the same lightness as his, and it made a frown curl onto his lips. "No, it wouldn't. This was my fault, Millie, and I never would have forgiven myself if I just left you." His face was written in guilt. She knew he hadn't forgiven himself anyway. "I'm sorry."

She kissed him again. "Stop. Stop blaming yourself for something that was out of your control." She caught his face in her hands. "It wasn't your fault. Don't try to rectify a mistake that was not yours." Kissing him was a strange thing. She couldn't say she had much experience with it; before Stefan, all she'd ever kissed were the newborn foals that loved to suckle on her lips as though expecting them to produce milk. His kisses were something different entirely, warm and sweet. He somehow put all of his love in their brevity, knowing that anything more might frighten her.

"You wouldn't have been on that ice if I hadn't put you there," he refuted.

"You're right," she agreed. "I would have instead been a poor crippled woman trying to hoe a garden big enough to feed Ulstead in an attempt to drown my sorrows. I'm not sure which you would prefer, but I know which one I prefer."

"You're_ not_ crippled," he mumbled in return. "I _hate_ that word." He petted her braid. "And I love you." He held her close to him and wrapped the covers tightly about them even though it really wasn't too cold.

She pushed him down onto his back and lay curled at his side. She wouldn't press the issue of her disability. It only hurt him. She would never want to hurt him. So she kissed him once more, shocked at herself; they never wandered so freely past the boundary of friends to this awkward boyfriend and crippled girlfriend thing. Then she rested her head on his shoulder. One arm rested peacefully over his chest while the other traced the scars on his neck. She had never asked about them, because unlike_ some _neighbors, she wasn't nosy. But there was a distinct difference between curiosity and nosiness, and she was curious. "Where did you get these?" she asked outright. He wouldn't lie to her; if he didn't want to say, he would tell her as much.

His lips curled downward. "Dogs," he replied simply. She didn't press the matter. Soft lips pressed to his neck where she could feel his pulse throbbing just beneath the scarred flesh. His warm arms glided over her back, soothing her to cave into the nap she was so desperately craving.

* * *

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure, because I can—"

"Diaval, I'm _fine!_" she insisted, throwing her free hand up into the air. "I'm not going to crumble into a million tiny little pieces the moment you walk out of this house. I'm not going to melt if I turn on the oven. I'm not going to shatter like glass if I bump against the kitchen table. You need to calm the hell down. I've looked after myself for quite a long time!"

He took a small step back and regretted his insistence that he shouldn't leave her. "Sorry," he mumbled. Honestly, what was going to happen to her in a thirty minute trip to town? "Do I still get a kiss?" he asked cheekily. She rolled her eyes and gave him a soft kiss. He grinned goofily and wrapped one arm around her waist, closing the space between them. "I'm sorry my inherent need to be near you bothers your independence complex."

"I do _not_ have an independence complex," she defended. He touched the tip of her nose, and she crinkled it in response. His eyes teased her. His lips made her want another kiss, but she didn't reach for it. "I'll have dinner ready when you get back." He went to protest. She silenced him with a finger to his lips. "Microwave macaroni and cheese with ravioli, yes?" She remembered so many months ago when he had asked her on the date that never actually happened. _"Or we could fix something up at your place. You know, microwave macaroni and cheese with ravioli." _She gave him a soft smile at the memory.

He laughed. "Alright," he conceded. "I'll get us a movie to watch." He bumped their crowns together, reluctant to move away from her. They shared the same air, breathed the same breaths, one and the same. He could spend a thousand lifetimes warmed by her heat and never grow cold or weary. "You could come with me," he suggested mildly.

"You can survive all of forty-five minutes without me getting in your way."

"You don't get in my way," he argued. "You are the only way." He gave a dramatic sigh.

She rolled her eyes. "Melodramatic poet."

"I can give you poetry." He cleared his throat as he prepared to recite something especially cheesy and beautiful for her ears, but she cut him off.

"Go to town first. You have the rest of the evening to recite Elizabeth Barrett Browning at me." She gently pushed his hand off of her waist and put a step of space between them. Her eyes portrayed the tiny bit of fear that burbled to the surface when they were too close too long. He knew not to pursue her even to plant a farewell kiss on her forehead, so he instead gathered her hand in his and squeezed it.

With a wink, he whispered, "I'll be back soon." He retreated from her home to his car before he could stop himself.

She watched him go and regretted her fear. She regretted her pain. She wished it would disappear as easily as her physical pain did at his presence. He deserved better, a fact he refused to entertain. _Time_, she reminded herself. _Time_. It would take time. She would take time. He accepted that. But she didn't know how long it would take. And she didn't know how long he would be willing to wait.

Distractions were easy to come by in the form of brewing sweet tea—his favorite, she learned, after a night of sleepy questions—and preparing dinner. She felt strange cooking two types of pasta and putting them on the same plate. One didn't have to attend culinary school to note that they needed a vegetable. She cracked open a can of green beans and quickly warmed them up in the microwave. Was this an official first date? Of course not. They'd eaten at her home plenty of times together. But somehow being _together_ made it more official. She rolled her eyes at her own childishness. She covered the food she'd prepared with too much care and went to sit down and take more Advil.

He returned soon with the promised movie in hand. "We're having a Pixar night!" he announced. "You can't go wrong with _Finding Nemo._" He placed his bags of groceries in the kitchen and brought her the plates. "You sure know how to make good food."

"Not particularly healthy," she grumbled in return.

"I never said it had to be healthy." He pulled her close to him and kissed her cheek, not missing the slight way she cringed. The distance ebbed back between their bodies, and he smoothed her hair down. "Are you alright?"

She looked at him, expression written in total concern and caring, an expression Stefan had never directed at her. It was pointless to compare them. Diaval loved her; Diaval was love himself. He was joy and peace and gentle arms in the depth of the night. He was patience and protectiveness and a shelter from the storm. He was passion and trust and anger directed at any who hurt her. "Mmm-hmm," she assured him. She leaned forward to give him a soft kiss, feeling guilty. He didn't deserve her insecurities. He deserved all he wanted from her.

He caught her face in his hands. She covered one of his hands with her own. "I love you," he murmured.

Near, so near. Warm, so warm. Eyelashes almost touching each other. Dark gems bore into brilliant green. She leaned in again, as if to give him another kiss, but restrained. Her breaths ghosted across his lips. Then, lowly, quietly, as if she feared the words themselves would break her, she weakly whispered, "I love you." That was all the confirmation he needed to take her in his arms and ever so gently kiss her hair while the movie came on, and just for a little while she could forget everything in the safety of his touch.

* * *

**A/N: The next chapter is more Diaval-centric. And I honestly have no idea how long this story is going to be; I have a general idea of where I want it to end, but I can't quite figure out where different things are going to fit in between. Right now a good estimate would probably twelve to fifteen (assuming nothing happens and it doesn't get abandoned; what with school approaching and summer homework that I still haven't done, it's unfortunately a possibility, no matter how much I love writing it). But it could turn out to be shorter or longer depending on my muse. **


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Ugh so much angst and fluff and omg I think I'm barfing rainbows guys. Be prepared for the angsty fluffiness that is about to ensue before your very eyes!**

* * *

"Diaval, what the hell are you doing?" Robin snapped, placing his hands on his hips. "You're supposed to be trying to sell books!"

Diaval's eyes widened. He hadn't meant to be caught using the store's computer for recreational purposes. But he wanted his plan to be a surprise for Maleficent, and most of their free time was spent together, so he had to be discreet to get her the perfect birthday present this year. Granted, there were still several months left, but he wanted it to be absolutely perfect. And he was actually no closer to his goal than he had been a week ago when the little idea first wormed itself into his brain. He stuttered for control over his tongue and quickly closed the Internet window. "Can't sell books if there's nobody to sell them to," he mumbled. Robin glared at him. "Sorry. Should I—I'll get to shelving the new releases right away."

The older man's gaze softened. "Diaval, do you know why I employ you?"

"Um, because I can live on low pay and you need a guy who doesn't complain a lot?" he guessed, only half listening.

Robin tossed his head back in a hearty laugh. "Those were the reasons I hired you, along with your English degree. I_ employ_ you because you are one of the few people I've ever met that loves literature as much as I do. All forms of literature. Not just books or magazine articles, not any particular genre. You're the type of guy who could spend the rest of your life reading the backs of cereal boxes."

Diaval frowned. "I don't think I'm following." He didn't understand where the conversation was headed at all. He absentmindedly placed the newest box set of _Harry Potter _on the appropriate shelf.

Robin stilled his hand. "These books aren't getting shelved, Diaval." His eyes were sad. "I'm closing up." He took in Diaval's shocked, hurt expression carefully. "I know this place means a lot to you—hell, I'd rather live here than my house—but we've dug ourselves a hole ten feet deep." He tugged a hand through his hair. "You're off the hook. I can handle it by myself for the next week. If the books don't sell by then, they can be donated."

Diaval bit his lip. He'd known this was coming for a while, but that didn't make it hurt much less. "And there's nothing I can do?" he asked hopefully.

His boss snorted. "There's a lot you can do, Diaval. Read more. Take up writing. Get your girlfriend and move the hell out of this town. Move somewhere healthy with nature and birds and sunlight in the morning, someplace far, far away from Ulstead. Hell, marry her if you want. Have a family. Get rich with a best seller. You're talented enough." He clapped him on the shoulder heartily. "This town isn't going to get better. It's going to get worse. This is the kind of place that'll eat you alive if you let it. So pack up all you've got and run for the hills, and take all that's precious with you. _That's_ what you can do. Do it." The man nodded and stuck out his hand. "It's been a pleasure working with you."

He stared at the hand with conflictions warring within him before he accepted it and nodded back, swallowing hard. "You too, Robin. Thanks." He gave a soft, sad smile and turned to the door, his ex-boss's words echoing in his mind. Run away? Run away from Ulstead? Ulstead was all he'd ever had consistently; it was the only place that treated him the same on a regular basis, even if the steady treatment wasn't exactly positive. Ulstead provided him with a friend, which he had never had before, and it gave him a few enemies. Leave? With Maleficent? He would be happy anywhere if he was by her side. But would she agree?

It wasn't a decision to be made overnight. None of it was a decision to be made overnight. The decision to be made on this night was the decision to drink alcohol. He drove straight home instead of to Maleficent's house, and if she noticed she didn't call him with any concern. Who was he kidding? Of course she noticed. But she was also incredibly good at taking hints, and his hint was telling her he wanted to be left alone for whatever reason. It was with this thought that he found himself staggering drunkenly across the road that separated their houses. The bottle was half-empty. How long had it been since he opened it? He burped in response to that thought.

She opened the door to usher him inside, wordless until he took a seat on the couch. She sat beside him but kept space between their bodies. Her eyes were serious, which he didn't quite understand. "What's wrong?" she asked as she struggled to pry the bottle from his hands. He relinquished it reluctantly. "Diaval." Her voice spoke his name, and he tried to focus on it. "What happened?"

He hiccupped. She touched his cheek. He leaned into her hand, and she let the space between their bodies close up tight. He sleepily curled against her. He felt sad, but memories were fuzzy, and he couldn't quite remember what he was upset about. His lips sought out hers, but she tilted her head away. He didn't understand why. He really wanted to kiss her. Maybe he wanted to kiss her too much. Maybe that was the problem. His head rested between her breasts, legs kicked up on the arm of the couch. She wasn't supposed to lie on her back. He knew that. But the alcohol seemed to have drained all the energy from his limbs. He couldn't move. He didn't want to, either.

But he could certainly move at about five the next morning when he awoke with her squirming beneath him, and he was about to vomit on her. He stumbled down the hallway and fortunately made it to the toilet where he heaved up the whiskey. He knew better than to drink. But it hadn't really been an option last night. Last night. Memories trickled back to him while he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Too much information to intake at once. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. So like his father, he was drawn to alcohol to drown his sorrows.

No, the apple never fell far from the tree. It was this thought that made his innards heave again before he weakly called, "Maleficent!" Was she okay? Had he hurt her? He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he had struck her.

A cool rag touched his face. "I'm right here." Her voice was soft, and she left the light off to help his migraine. Soft fingers combed through his thick hair.

He leapt to his feet too quickly, and the world spun around him. She steadied him with a firm touch to the ribcage. He swallowed down more bile and demanded thickly, "Are you alright? Did I hurt you?"

"Sit down," she urged him.

"No, I need, I need—" He stumbled back and sat on the toilet seat. She leaned her cane against the wall and sat in his lap to wipe his face with the cool, damp rag. "Are you—Did I—are you hurt?"

"I'm fine." She kept wiping his face, hushing more of his questions. "Move slowly, and sit on the couch. I'll make you some breakfast and coffee." She smoothed back his hair. "Here." She handed him a bottle of Advil.

He stared blankly at the bottle. "I'm not supposed to drink. It was—I was stupid, such a fucking disappointment." He bent his head.

She kissed his forehead. "You can tell me all about it once I get some toast in you," she promised. Worry churned in her gut. Drinking wasn't like him at all. Neither was panicking upon waking or cutting down his own vain ego. "Get up." He didn't look like he was going to take the pills yet. That was probably good; they would be useless if he just threw them up. She slung his arm over her shoulder and pulled him up. Her back crackled in protest, and she grated her teeth. Being trapped beneath his drunken, passed out form hadn't been a_ pleasant_ experience, but she'd faced worse. She loved him, after all, though she couldn't say it often. She would take care of him like he always took care of her. "Sit down." She pushed him down. "Sit still."

She brewed him coffee and fixed toast quickly, returning to sit beside him. He clutched at his head. "A fucking disappointment," he repeated.

One finger caught his chin, tilted it up so his eyes met hers. "Who told you a thing like that?"

He shrugged. "My dad used to say it a lot," he mumbled. He closed his eyes. _This_ was why he wasn't supposed to drink. This crazy shit happened. Right when he thought he'd fixed everything up all peachy and sweet, he did something stupid and he couldn't make the memories stop in the aftermath.

She frowned deeply. "What happened yesterday?"

He hiccupped. "The store's closing." His voice was flat. It felt better that way. Less emotion. He didn't need emotion right this second. It was hard enough to battle the fear that she was hiding bruises from him, bruises that he couldn't remember giving her. "I'm sorry." He bent his head again. Alcohol was a depressant. He had a predisposition toward addiction. "I shouldn't have…" He shook his head.

She laid the flat of her palm against his face. "There is nothing to apologize for. You did nothing wrong."

He shook his head again. "I—I…" He kept shaking his head until she stilled it between her hands. "I could've hurt you, I could've hurt you and I wouldn't even remember." He bumped her crown against his. "My dad would do it to my mom." His eyes fell closed. "He would beat her and wouldn't even remember, he would swear he wasn't the one who left her bruised…"

She kissed his forehead. "Diaval, calm down. I'm fine, I promise." He blinked up at her despite the heavy headache. His eyes didn't quite believe her, didn't quite trust her. She sighed and lifted the hem of her shirt. "See?"

There were no marks on her besides the usual scars on her back that hadn't changed since he'd met her. He nodded dumbly and took a deep breath of her scent. "Thank god." He pulled her against him, and she didn't resist, instead tracing his scars with her fingers. "I couldn't bear to hurt you, ever. I would never…" He shook his head once more. "Millie, if I ever come to your door again with a bottle in my hand—please, just lock the door. Close all the windows. Don't let me in."

She stared back at him. "I would never close a door to you, Diaval. Drunken or otherwise. It is my job to take care of you as much as it is yours to take care of me." His gaze was pained. She soothed him with fingers gliding through his hair. Then, words neither of them had ever expected to hear left her lips. "I trust you." She pulled him against her and let his head rest against her chest, and she wondered if he recognized that her heart beat fast especially for him. And she wondered what other pain he hid, what other scars he had. As long as he'd been helping her overcome her pain, it was time she helped him overcome his.

He yawned against her sleepily. She rubbed the back of his neck, massaged his shoulders like he so often did hers. "Love you," he mumbled. She didn't reply—she rarely did—but instead kissed his temple. She whispered in his ear that he should go back to sleep, awaken with a lesser migraine and more rational mind, and he complied, easily slipping back into a slumber. She continued to rub his shoulders long after he'd fallen asleep if only because she yearned to keep touching him. But eventually hunger drove her to fix lunch. She made him a turkey sandwich and placed on the end table next to him, but she didn't wake him to make him eat it. He needed more sleep. She put in a movie and let it run while worry churned in her chest for him.

She knew how much he loved his job. She had seen him peruse the aisles, witnessed the way his fingers trailed over the spines. He looked at books the same way he studied her when he thought she wasn't looking. He adored books. There had been a brief period of time when she was unsettled by this fact, but it was a part of him.

But those weren't her only worries. Diaval was strong, resilient. He would find a new job with no problem. However, she was concerned about his mental welfare. He had never been open toward her about his past; while she knew he wasn't deliberately secretive, he didn't exactly go about telling happy stories about his childhood, and she didn't pry. Neither of them had many childhood tales to tell. Hers had been spent encouraging a half ton creature to jump something taller than her, and his had been spent raising hogs. Not much enjoyment to be found there.

He stirred from his sleep and grunted, rubbing his eyes. She touched his wrist. "Do you feel better now?"

He nodded. He wouldn't look her in the eyes. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"You have nothing to apologize for," she reminded him softly. He kept his gaze away from hers. "Diaval, I am worried about you."

He stiffened. "I'm fine."

She pressed her forehead against his temple. "I don't doubt that." His arm automatically slid around her to pull her close. "I am here to listen to you, if you wish to speak." She gently kissed the scar by his eye. "Let me help you, please. Let me take care of you the way you take care of me."

He forced his lips to curl into a small smile. "Millie, I'm fine," he repeated. He was careful to look right at her. Her body was soft against him, soft and warm. He could feel the curve of her breasts against his side. It made his lips go dry, and he licked them. "Really. We all have bad memories. I have a few too many. But I'm alright, I swear." He leaned forward to kiss her, but thought better of it. "I'm sorry I'm gross and smell like puke," he half-joked.

"I'm not." She still kissed him. Her worries weren't gone. She would watch him closely. But she trusted him with her life; shouldn't she trust him with his own? "This might be my feminine side speaking, but a hot bath really fixes everything. I strongly recommend it."

He blinked up at her with a weary smile. "Sounds great." He didn't want to leave the warm embrace of her arms, but he reminded himself that it would feel much better once he was clean. "I'll go do that. Like, right now." He stumbled to his feet. His limbs didn't want to cooperate, but he forced them to carry him toward the bathroom. He sat on the lid of the toilet and started to run a bath.

She knocked on the door and waited for his consenting words before opening it. A pile of clothes fell from her free arm. He smiled at her, and she returned it with a teasing glare that morphed into a slight upward curl of her lips. Her eyes were bright. Her ruby lips were inviting. He loved her so much. He wanted to launch himself at her and smother her in hugs and gentle kisses. He wanted to graze his fingers over her abdomen where he knew she was ticklish, and he wanted to make her giggle like she had that night the drugs addled her mind. _After I'm clean_, he reminded himself. He blew her a kiss, and she rolled her eyes and turned to leave the room.

He stripped away his sweaty, wrinkled clothes and sank into the warm water. His eyes fell closed as they naturally did when he was naked. He didn't like looking at himself. Too many scars. Looking at them led to bad thoughts, so he stopped looking at them and moved on with life. Sometimes he forgot he had them until he touched them again. He most often forgot about them when Maleficent kissed him. Those were the times he could finally feel complete once more.

He felt anything but complete when his eyes opened. The scars were pale ridges in his skin, so unlike hers. Her scars were smoothly curled into her pale skin. His were like mountainsides. He absently traced one. Would she be repulsed by them? _Of course not_, he chided himself. She wasn't the type to be bothered by something as shallow as a few scars on his chest. It was that knowledge that comforted most of his demons to peace. He quickly washed himself up, feeling the grime trickle off of him. With a begrudging frown, he put her lavender lilac shampoo in his hair. It felt so good to feel clean once again, regardless of the womanly scents he bathed in.

Mind calm once more, he began to think up new ways to give her what he wanted for her birthday. His own devices hadn't been enough. He needed more information from her, but he didn't want to give the secret away. It was supposed to be a surprise, after all. He needed to make it the perfect surprise, the perfect birthday. But how was he going to learn what he needed to know without completely giving away his plan or, more importantly, without deceiving her? _"Hey, Millie, I was just wondering if I could have your parents' names, phone numbers, and their home address? No, I don't need the information for any reason; I just want to add more contacts in my cellphone."_ He swallowed hard. This was going to be harder than he expected. But he would fight for it because she was worth it.

_I still have several weeks left_, he reminded himself. Winter's first snow hadn't arrived yet; it was only early October. He had plenty of time to precociously plan every precious facet to the point of perfection. He dried himself and reached for the pile of clean clothes she'd brought him. The boxers and pants were his own; he must have left them at her house when he washed a load of clothes while she was hurt. But the shirt, while large enough to fit him, held a very lady-like pink and orange flower pattern. He buttoned it up with a frown. The top button was broken. He didn't mind, per se, except that it exposed even more of his scars than the ones of his face and neck. How long would it be before she demanded answers from him? _Never,_ he convinced himself. She wouldn't pull the story from him like teeth. She would wait. _"I'm here to listen to you, if you wish to speak." _He didn't deserve her at all, not her beauty, not her grace, not her quiet, tender affections.

He gave up on the shirt and gathered the saoiled clothes into his arms. He dropped them in her hamper. She was in the kitchen, presumably fixing dinner. The day had flown by him. He touched her shoulder. She flinched. He took a step back. "Sorry." He mentally berated himself. He knew better than to sneak up on her. His right hand took her left, and he came close to her again.

Her eyes softened into a smile. "You look dashing." He narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm serious. Tough guys wear pink." She pecked his cheek. Her hand left his and pressed to his chest. She could feel his heart pounding there.

He touched her hand that rested on her cane and squeezed it gently. "I never thought you would like tough guys," he teased. Her touch made his heart leap upward and flounder like a fish out of water. His lips reached for hers, and she gave him a sweet kiss before breaking away.

She sang softly with a devilish smirk, "It's you I like. It's not the things you wear. It's not the way you do your hair, but it's you I like." She bumped her crown against his, rubbed their noses together.

"You did_ not_ just use my own romantic device against me," Diaval deadpanned.

"You were not the only one who watched _Mister Rogers' Neighborhood_," she defended. Her fingers traced his scars of their own accord, and her touch burned like fire against him. "And Fred Rogers would be very, very disappointed in the two of us for calling his show a romantic device."

He leaned forward to kiss her smile again, and this time neither of them pulled away. He uncertainly flicked his tongue across her lips, and to his surprise she parted them for him to explore her. His tongue brushed against hers. She tasted strange but good. One hand reached to pull her closer to him while the other grazed across her lower abdomen. She jerked in astonishment and broke away from their kiss. "How did you know I was ticklish?" she panted.

He touched his lips to the tip of her nose. "You told me," he replied with a wink. Old shadows were crossing her face, and he feared they had stepped across the line of her fear. "I'll help you make dinner," he promised. His arm dropped from her waist, and he gave her some space while he checked the noodles boiling in a pot. After a few more minutes, she added beef to the noodles. She was quiet. He didn't like it when she went quiet. He watched her cane transfer from her right hand to her left so she could stir the pot. A curious question burbled to his lips, and he released it without meaning to do so. "Do you get annoyed with having to switch hands all the time?" She raised a questioning eyebrow at him, and he instantly regretted it. "I mean," he explained, "you're right handed, so you're always switching your cane back and forth to do different things… Sorry, that was a dumb question, I'll shut up now."

She smirked at him with an eye-roll. "Yes, it does get quite annoying," she admitted. "Try hoeing a garden with one hand. Not fun." Her eyes scanned over his face. "Don't give me that look. You haven't offended me. I'm not made of glass," she reminded him.

He returned the smile. "I know that. It doesn't mean I don't worry about offending you."

"You certainly didn't seem too worried when we first met," she challenged, remembering the brashness with which he demanded her life story.

"That was different. I had Nikita backing me up." Glad that the tension in the air had been, for the most part, released, he went after a ladle. "And I was still pretty sure you hated me, so it wasn't like I was risking much."

She rolled her eyes and tried her best to keep thoughts of Nikita far away. "I only hated you the first day. Hand-shaker." She shuddered in teasing repulsion, and he laughed.

He got them both bowls and filled them, and they ate together at the kitchen table. The dribbling juices stained his pink shirt, and he dabbed at it with a napkin while embarrassment tickled his cheeks. But the food was good, even to a man who'd been raised with his grandmother. He rose to leave. He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to be alone. More specifically, he didn't want to be without her. Quiet words left his lips without his consent. "Is it alright if I crash on your couch?" His voice was meeker than he meant it to be.

"No," she refuted quickly. At his look, she raised an eyebrow. "There are two sides to my bed, Diaval." She pecked his cheek. He blushed and agreed softly.

She came to bed in a muted green nightgown that hung to her shins. He held a book up to the lamplight, trying his best not to stare at her. She curled up next to him. He kissed her forehead and put the book down, reaching to turn off the light. "Night," he whispered to her.

"Night," she responded.

"I love you." His warm hands touched her back, and she pressed closer against him. The gown was thin and comfortable, but it shifted when he tried to rub her back until he finally gave up, knowing it had to be bothersome for her clothes to keep rustling while she was trying to sleep. His arms stilled, and he turned on his side, facing her. Her face glowed silver in the faint light, and her eyes were bright emeralds that stared up at him through heavy lids. Her ruby lips parted, but she didn't speak, instead placing her hand on his collarbones that were exposed by the broken button in his shirt. Her fingers thoughtfully traced the exposed scars. His heartbeat picked up, fearing rejection. But Maleficent's face eased into a slight smile, and her eyes fell closed, hand still resting there. His own lips curled upward, and he found himself more at peace than ever before as he eased into sleep next to her.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Are there any other Firefox users out there that have been having problems with FF? It won't load the site anymore, and I hate using Internet Explorer. If you have a solution, please drop me a PM!**

**There is a place in this chapter (you'll know when you get there) where Stefan's words are in regular font and the doctors' words are in bold Italics. I thought most of the readers would be smart enough to get that, but just in case you're not... :P**

* * *

He awoke with her hair in his mouth, her face crushed against his shoulder. The gown had slipped over one shoulder, exposing one scar on her back. He pulled her garment back into place. Her hand curled into a fist, and he went stiff. The flat of her palm was against his bare chest; the shirt had come unbuttoned in the night. He went to hurriedly button it back up, but it was too late. She stirred and stroked the scars tenderly, peering at them through half-lidded eyes. He turned his eyes back to her and leaned in. Would she still kiss him? Did she hate his scars?

Her lips met his with a drowsy smile. "I like waking up with you," she admitted. Her fingers continued to trace his scars. He didn't like that. It made him feel confused emotions that he couldn't process while he was still waking up. His hand stilled hers. She closed her eyes and pressed her nose against the hollow of his neck. "Sorry," she murmured sleepily. "I had a dream that you had really bad chest hair, and I had to make sure before things got more serious." Her warm breaths tickled his throat.

He curled his arm from around her to button the shirt back up. She grunted in protest, trying to pin his limb beneath her so not to lose its warmth. He'd forgotten how strange she could be before she fully awakened. Quickly sliding the buttons back into place, he gathered her up in his arms again and kissed her hair. "You don't think they're ugly?" he asked softly.

Her hand began to rub firm circles on his chest. "No." He could feel her lips moving against his neck. "I think…" His breath hitched, certain she was about to say something profound, but she continued, "I think I need coffee. What time is it?" Her voice was losing its tired slur.

He laughed into her hair. "It's seven thirty. We can get some more sleep."

She pulled the covers back up. "Yeah. Sleep. Sleep sounds good." She rolled into a more comfortable position, effectively trapping his left arm and leg beneath her. He sighed and rested his right arm on her abdomen. She laced her fingers with his. "You're warm," she commented. She pulled his arm up, up. His eyes widened as she dragged his hand across the soft curve of her bosom and rested it there, cupping one soft breast.

He fidgeted. "I'll make us some coffee." He tried to pull his hand away, but her elbow dug into his arm, pinning it. "Maleficent?" he questioned.

"Diaval, I'm not as tired as you think I am." Her voice was sharp and clear. She shifted his hand so it rested between her breasts. "Better now?"

He frowned. "I don't a problem touching your boob. I thought _you_ would have a problem with me touching your boob."

"Dirtypillows," she grunted.

He laughed. "I can think of better times to quote Stephen King." He slid his other arm under her neck and traced her collarbones. He pulled her closer to his chest so that her back rested against him, and memories of Robin's speech came spilling back to him. _Marry her if you want. Have a family. Get rich on a bestseller_. He inhaled deeply in her hair. Would it be right for him to mention that for her? Neither of them had strong ties in Ulstead. Would it be good to ask her to leave? Would she go with him? He carefully slid his arm out from under hers. "I'll go make us some coffee," he repeated.

She rolled over quickly and flopped on top of him. "Stay in this bed or I will knock you out with my cane and make you," she threatened. Her emerald eyes took in his troubled expression, and she leaned forward to kiss him, sliding her arms under his head. His chest lifted her body up and down with every rise-fall breath. Gentle fingers combed through his hair. "Your beautiful self is exceptionally handsome in the morning," she complimented, hoping to soothe his troubles, but the look didn't ease. Neither did her concerns.

"You are steadily ethereal no matter the time of day." He reached up to disentangle some of her long strands of hair. "I love you."

She touched his nose. "Something's bothering you."

"Is it that easy to tell?"

"You're an open book." She ran her index finger up the bridge of his nose, traced his eyebrows, then went down around his scars. She followed his cheekbones and touched his lips. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He kissed her palm. "I would rather wait until we've had breakfast, if it's okay." At her look, he continued, "We both know you're more agreeable when you have a cup or two of coffee in your system. But if you want to cuddle another hour or so, that's more than acceptable."

"Now you've perked my curiosity, unfortunately." She reached for her cane and Advil with a grunt. He obediently rolled out of bed as well and headed to get the coffee brewing while she headed to her closet to make herself presentable for the day. He thought she was presentable no matter how she dressed.

She leaned heavily upon her cane while she debated which of two t-shirts to put on. She picked the black one and grabbed a pair of jeans. Though she would never admit it, she was a little nervous for whatever serious conversation they were about to hold. She had a sinking sensation that it was something about her—something that she did or didn't do, something he thought they should try—and that chilled her. He would never do anything to deliberately hurt her, she knew, but she also knew he wanted _more_. She could see it in the way he looked at her. His eyes were hungry for her, hungry in a need she couldn't fulfill. He deserved better.

The brush ripped through her hair, and she pulled it back in a severe ponytail, a way she seldom wore it. She went up the hall to find him fixing her coffee with too much sugar as he always did, and he smiled at her, though the troubles hadn't faded from his black eyes. She took the mug. "It's actually two teaspoons of sugar," she whispered, as though she were telling him some great secret.

He looked from her to the cup of coffee and back again. "You've got to be kidding me." She arched one shapely eyebrow at him. "All this time, you never thought to inform me that I've been making your coffee wrong once?" He moved to pour it out, but she stilled his hand.

"I like that it's different." He didn't look convinced. "It reminds me that you made it." She gave him a brief kiss before taking a sip of the too-sweet coffee. The toast popped out of the toaster, and she smeared on butter and jelly and gave the plate to him. He accepted, smile never dropping from his face. She ate her own toast dry and sat across the table from him. After quickly draining her cup of coffee, she questioned, "So?"

He blinked, averting his eyes from her. He was silent for a few more minutes, and she didn't press him. If time was what he needed to tell her, he could have time. She didn't want to pry, no matter how infinite her curiosity or worry. Finally, he cleared his throat. "Yesterday, my boss…Robin, you remember him?"

She narrowed her eyes. "The one who got angry when we talked about things other than books in his store so we ended up speaking in code? Yes, I remember him quite clearly." His eyes flinched, and she regretted her harsh words. "Continue?" she prompted, getting up to get some more coffee.

He bit his lip, clearly thinking out his words, before he complied. "I think…" He swallowed hard. "I think I'm going to leave Ulstead," he blurted. His eyes widened. He hadn't meant for it to come out quite like that.

Her hands began to quake uncontrollably. She placed the coffee on the counter to keep from dropping it. Her right hand tightened on her cane so that her fingers went white. "You're leaving?" she breathed. He saw it, the betrayal, the pain in her face. He leaped to his feet and walked to her, reaching, but his lips wouldn't move fast enough to get the words out. "You're leaving me."

"No, no, I would never—" But she wasn't listening. She was moving quickly toward the front door, far too quickly for someone who walked with a cane. "Millie, wait, I—" She shrugged off his hand when he managed to grab her shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped.

"Maleficent, wait!" She wasn't listening. Out the front door, into the chilly morning air. She climbed into the front seat of her truck. "Maleficent!" He hurried out after her. Did she even have shoes on? He didn't know. But she was ignoring his cries. She backed out of the driveway too fast to be safe. The last he saw of her were the tears streaming down her cheeks through the dirty window. He stood breathless, staring after her. His heart was breaking. He'd hurt her. He'd hurt so bad and she hadn't let him fix it. She'd given him her trust, her broken trust of all things, and he'd shattered it.

His knees were rubbery. He staggered back inside and sank onto her couch. Reaching for his phone, he called her, but it rang beside him. So he would have to wait. He would need to wait until she came back and explain, explain that he hadn't meant to hurt her, explain that would go nowhere without her. It felt strange being in her house without her there. It hurt. It made him ache. He wanted to forget the morning ever happened and try it again. His mind wandered to the possibility of alcohol, but he shoved it away and locked the notion up in the corners of his brain. He would not make a mistake like that again. "A fucking disappointment," he mumbled to himself. Twin tears slid down his cheeks, and he was unashamed of them. He lay down on her couch with his head on the cushion. "I'm sorry." As if she could hear him.

* * *

Maleficent drove. She drove and drove and drove until she was almost out of gas. A minute, ten, an hour, six, till it was nighttime and she didn't know where the hell she was and she barely had enough money stored in the glove box to pay for the gas on the way home. She hadn't eaten. She wasn't hungry. She wondered if anyone would try to kill her if she parked in the Walmart parking lot and slept. She didn't think she would be able to sleep. She didn't want to go home. She didn't want to confront him again.

How stupid had she been? How had she let him in so easily? Why had she thought that he was at all different from Stefan? Was it because he could look upon her with genuine concern? Or was it simply that she was attracted to him and let fantasies get the best of her?

_Nonsense_, a voice whispered. _Diaval loves you_. She touched the emerald that hung from her neck and felt another crying jag coming on. Another voice snarled back, _Love doesn't leave. Love doesn't exist!_ The first voice reminded her of all things he'd done for her. She remembered the sharp way his hand curled into a fist when Stefan was ever mentioned. She saw the softness of his eyes in her mind; she could feel his lips against hers. She bent her chin down to her sternum and rested it there.

"I screwed up," she whispered. Bump. Bump. Bump. She weakly thumped her head against the steering wheel. How many ways had she screwed herself over? Loving him was the first mistake. "It was a mistake," she told herself aloud. "A mistake," she repeated. Her heart and mind told her otherwise. Her heart and mind whispered that she needed to go back to him, needed to apologize and tell him that she overreacted and _listen_ to him. She'd sworn to listen to him and then she'd stormed off when she feared he would hurt her. She knew he would never intentionally hurt her. He had had more to say, and she hadn't let him say it. She jumped to conclusions. "I'm sorry." She wished he could hear her. Softly, she choked out, "I love you," around her tears that were starting to come again.

She remembered that she hadn't cried this much since Nikita died (curse her pessimistic mind for bringing the bad things to surface when she was already upset), and that automatically made it worse. She wiped the tears hurriedly. She needed to go home. Her tongue snaked out over her dry lips. She was thirsty. But gas was more important. She filled the tank, leaving her with less than a dollar. And then she turned the truck toward home.

She wondered how long it had been since the location of her house was no longer just a small town or Ulstead but had instead become _home_. She had vowed never to consider a place home again. Nikita was home. Her truck was home. Buildings changed. Towns moved about. But some things never changed. She thought Ulstead had become home when it provided her with a friend—Diaval. The same friend who seemed to have made a game of shattering what remained of her glass heart.

_No_, she tried to defend. He didn't mean it. He couldn't have meant it. She must have misinterpreted. There was a miscommunication. He wouldn't leave her.

_ "__Mal, you know Stefan was the one who put the pin under Silver's saddle."_

_She closed her eyes against the pain and resisted the urge to hit the pump for more medication, instead clenching her hands into fists and pulling the scratchy blanket up to her chin. Words loosely floated about her mind. _I love you_. __**Crippled.**_True love's kiss_. __**Luckily not paralyzed.**_I would rather lose a competition than lose you_. __**Good thing she had a helmet**__. _Ribbons mean nothing; what we've got, that's for life_. __**She'll need a walker, maybe a cane if she's strong enough, but she won't be walking without assistance. **__"No, he wouldn't." Her voice was hoarse. "He loves me." _

_ "__Always knew there was something up with that boy." Her dad looked away with hate in his eyes._

_Her mother's gaze softened. "Who else had Silver, honey? Dad, you, and him."_

_Maleficent's eyes fell distrustfully onto her father. He noticed her gaze and rose. "I'm sick of this bullshit!" He stormed out of the room. _

_Her eyes were forced to fall back on her mother. "I refuse to believe that you sabotaged your own horse. I know you loved Silver too much to ever consider something like that. Why won't you admit that he did it?"_

_ "__Stefan would never."_

_ "__He hasn't come to visit you. Not a phone call." Maleficent grated her teeth, and her mother stopped persisting. "Your dad has been researching therapeutic riding. Nikita would be perfect—"_

_ "__No," she rasped. _

_Her mom sighed deeply and reached for the Styrofoam cup of ice water. She didn't hand it to the injured girl in the bed, rather just taking a sip out of it for herself before replacing it. "It would help. There's science backing it. You know that; you've studied all of that—"_

_Maleficent didn't want to hear any more. She hit the pump for more pain medication and shifted into a more comfortable position. Her mother's voice faded away into emptiness while she drowned out the thoughts—even the merest possibility—that Stefan could be responsible for her accident. _

She sucked back into the present. The tears wouldn't stop. There was no pain pump to hit now; all she had was Advil, and no water with which to take them. Diaval _wasn't_ Stefan. She had decided long ago to stoop comparing them. But it hurt, it hurt like a bitch, to think that he would be so thoughtless. "I need you," she whispered, praying that she had the strength to go back to him. What would she do once she returned? What if he'd meant the things he'd said exactly as he said them—he intended to leave Ulstead without her? It was a risk she would have to take.

The road hummed by her too slowly, but she didn't go above the speed limit. She tried to collect her thoughts, but it was like gathering twenty bouncy balls with one hand; her hand wasn't big enough, and they kept bouncing away to freedom. The hours passed much more slowly. The clock on the dash said three thirty five. She kept driving, driving blindly toward home.

Ulstead was recognizable as the only town she knew with no streetlamps. She grew ever slower when she realized just how close to home she was located, but she didn't stop. She pulled into her driveway. The light was on the living room window. He hadn't left. He'd waited on her. This made her ache a bit, though the kind of ache she couldn't quite identify. She climbed out of the car. Her back was killing her. Her cane was a crutch on which her survival depended. It got her up the steps and to the door. It let her open the door. It was there for her to squeeze.

He sat up slowly without realizing he'd fallen asleep. She was back, there, before him. He leapt to his feet and opened his arms. "Maleficent, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

She threw herself at him. His eyes were as red-rimmed as hers, and she hated that. She buried her face in his neck and found even more unwelcome tears still ready to emerge from her eyes. "I'm sorry." Her voice was so weak and trembling. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run. I was afraid."

He sat down without loosening his grip on her. "Don't cry, I'm sorry, please don't cry." He wiped away her tears with his thumbs. "I would never go anywhere without you, Millie," he whispered. "I thought you knew that." A soft kiss pressed into her hair, and he combed through the dark mess of tangles with his fingers. Then, carefully, he drew her chin up so that she looked him in the eyes. "I wanted to know if you would go with me. Anywhere you want. I'll be happy anyplace I'm by your side. But this place isn't healthy for us. Robin made me realize that." He pressed their foreheads against each other. "I don't want to go anywhere without you ever. You're the most important thing in my life. One day…" He choked on his words. They would break everything, but he couldn't stop them. "One day I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Just…just please don't run away from me anymore."

Completely unfazed by his words, she nodded. "Never, never." She leaned forward to kiss him, and he accepted graciously. Her lips were as soft as he'd been remembering them all day. Almost inaudibly, she told him, "I love you." Such a raw admittance. She was all in. She was jumping into the abyss and trusting him to catch her.

"I love you more," he teased. She reached for another kiss hungrily, and he again gave it to her, but neither broke away. Her tongue pushed between his lips. He tasted like wild berries. There was a dull thud of her cane falling from her hand and striking the floor. She drew her legs up on the couch and deepened their kiss with passion. One hand rested on his chest while the other reached under the hem of his shirt. Her pounding heart was driving her wild with desire. He deserved more. She would give him _more._ Her teeth grazed his lip and tugged. He moaned loudly, completely taken aback.

He found his own hands trailing up and down her clothed torso. He was scared to slide them underneath her clothing, scared of scaring her. So he instead did his best to reciprocate her maddening kiss and pulled at her shirt with gentle tugs and caresses. She was rougher with bites and scratches that he thought might leave marks. He tenderly touched anything he felt was safe, and when he grew especially bold, he grabbed the hem of her shirt. His eyes flickered up to hers, but they were closed. He touched her bare skin. She broke away from his face and he feared he'd done something horribly wrong, but she sucked in a deep breath and dove down his neck, sucking and biting and dragging her teeth.

His fingers stroked her skin, unsure of exactly what to do with themselves. She moaned something unintelligible and ripped at the buttons on his shirt until they all broke free. "Off," she mumbled. "I want it off." She pushed him down on his back and situated herself on top of him.

He pulled the shirt free and laid it in the floor, but he grabbed her by the shoulders. "Maleficent. You need to calm down." He wanted it, he wanted it so bad. He wanted it. But he didn't want to hurt her. He planted a brief kiss to her lips. "Think for a moment. I don't—I don't want this to hurt you."

Her skin was flushed. He'd never seen so much color in her before. Her voice was raspy with thirst. "It won't." She was straddling him, pinning him down. Hair wild, lips swollen. She'd never looked so beautiful before. "Trust me."

Trust her he did. He heard her grunts and moans and louder cries. He felt her fingernails and teeth, and he returned in kind with gentle squeezes by warm palms. And when she shrieked and threw her head back and he felt her in the air all around him, he held her close and whispered sweet nothings into her pointed ear. Her discarded cane was long forgotten. She had never felt so whole before in her life. "I love you," she whispered sleepily. The words were still not easy to say, but they were easier than before.

"I love you, Millie." He kissed her temple. She wasn't broken. He hadn't broken her. He comforted himself with those thoughts, and he let himself sleep with her hot breaths fanning over his face.

* * *

It was close to noon when she awoke. Her back was pressed into the back of the couch, face buried in the crook of Diaval's scarred neck. The first word that passed through her mind was not _cane_ nor was it _Advil_, but it was instead _naked_. They were both naked. Her breasts were crushed against his side. A small blanket was pulled over their waists. She couldn't remember falling asleep to one there. The memories trickled back to her one by one. It made her skin tingle. She was sore—her body ached, much more than just her back—but she could feel the need for him stirring within her.

He shifted beneath her. "Mmm…" He slid his arm out from under her. "Ow." He sat up. Her back burned, but she did the same. He blearily blinked at her. "Why are you—why am I—oh my god." Her face shifted into a slight, almost nervous, smile. After a few more minutes, he announced, "Wow." His arms reached for her, touched her waist. He scanned her for bruises, any hurts he might have caused. Seeing none, he bent in for a kiss. She moved toward him and grimaced at the soreness, and he immediately pulled back. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," she assured him. She gave him the sweet touch of her lips. "I'm sore. Just like you, I presume," she teased. She rubbed his chest with the flat of her palm, and he returned the gesture on her back. Her scars were finally in full view to him, all of their pale, stark entirety. He traced their edges with his fingers curiously. She shivered, and he stopped.

Once they were fully awake, both of them were a bit embarrassed at their nudity. Diaval scooped up their assorted clothing and tried to decipher between his and hers. Maleficent took the Advil she so desperately desired and found her cane with her foot, kicked haphazardly under the couch. "Let's get some breakfast," she murmured, finding her feet. Her back gave a dull ache, but it was no worse than usual. However, some other parts of her body were also protesting. She hoped the Advil kicked in soon.

He was still trying to restore feeling to the arm that she'd slept on. "I'd always promised myself that my first time would be in a bed," he grumbled, "so I didn't have this problem."

She almost choked on her scrambled eggs. "No way."

"No way what? We have beds for a reason!"

"No way that you're a virgin!"

"Not anymore," he shot back. His eyebrows knitted together at her puzzled expression. "I was homeschooled and everyone at college thought I was gay because I liked books more than girls. How does it surprise you?"

After a deep reconsideration, she decided it didn't. "I suppose it doesn't." She hadn't found it surprising so much that he had been a virgin up until last night; she found it surprising that he chose to give his first time to her. There was the little voice in the back of her mind that whispered, "_It was his, but it wasn't yours_." She told the voice to shut the hell up. A devilish smirk came onto her face. "If you're so set on being in the bedroom, I think we could arrange a…reenactment on a more appropriate set."

"One moment." He pulled the crinkled list from his back pocket, and with one smooth motion of his pen, he slashed out a line. "What was that about a reenactment?"


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Well I had told myself that I wasn't going to post this chapter until tomorrow, but I was having a bit of writers' block half-way through chapter thirteen and then I looked at the clock and said, "Well, it's 1:30, so it's technically tomorrow." Thus here is the update. **

**Updates will become more erratic. I have exactly a week before school starts and a shit ton of work that I have procrastinated on up until this point. But I love this story so much I don't think it would ever get abandoned. They're too adorable. **

**There is a strange break in this chapter because I included a soft lemon, but I cut it out to post it here so the story would still be rated T. I'll try to get this chapter up on AO3 as soon as possible so those of you that want to read the lemon will be able to.**

* * *

"Diaval, you have had me blindfolded for no less than an hour. Are we almost to our destination?" She fidgeted in the seat beside him. He knew she didn't like the cloth that covered her eyes, but her birthday present was going to be a _surprise_, dammit! It would be ruined if she knew where they were going. "Can I have hint?"

"No." He rubbed her arm. "Mapquest says we have thirty more minutes. Hang in there, my dear."

She sighed and shifted her position. "This better be worth it. I might end up motion sick, and then what will you do?"

"Clean out my car, help you change clothes, and resume the journey." She pulled her arm away from him, and he didn't protest, even though it made guilt prick in his chest. "It _will_ be worth it," he promised. He wanted to hold her hand. She clamped both of her hands around her cane and leaned her head against the window. "That sulking face is not getting the blindfold off any sooner."

She sighed. "I know." Internally, she was extremely nervous. Deception and surprises weren't like him. She couldn't even think of a reason for him to put a blindfold on her; he was never interested in anything like that in the bedroom. Hell, she had to harass him to make him use a little force and treat her like something other than a glass statue, even when she left bloody marks on his body. There was no reasonable explanation for the cloth she currently sported around her eyes. But he deserved more, so she tried not to complain.

She felt the car slow to veer around some sharp curves. She reached for a hold on the handle and swallowed hard. "Can you please slow down?"

"Some bastard's pushing me." He obediently slowed some more. "Someone who probably knows where they're going."

"Are you lost?" she demanded.

"I don't think so. I've just never been out this way before." The car passed them and honked. He looked up at the people within. A man and a woman, both about in their forties, waved madly at them. There was an older teenager in the back seat who peered at him curiously. He swallowed hard. They weren't waving at _him_. They were waving at _her_. He held a finger to his lips and mouthed, "_Surprise_." They seemed to get the message and passed by them, speeding ahead. "I think we're close." The car had a horse on the license plate.

She sighed again. He touched her elbow. "Come on, Millie. I have invested a lot of effort in getting you the perfect present. Stop sulking about the blindfold."

"If it's perfect, you shouldn't have to surprise me with it." She let him take her hand. His palm was warm against hers.

He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. "The surprise is part of _my_ fun." He wanted to lean over and kiss her temple, but with the unfamiliar, winding road, it was nearly impossible. Gradually, the road thinned to almost one lane, and the hilly forest land morphed into farm land, and the area straightened. He saw it—a huge sign painted onto the side of a bright red barn. _Moors' Thoroughbred Horse Farm._ He let out a low whistle. The place was grand.

The car rolled into dirt driveway that was large enough to be a small parking lot. "Can I take it off now?" she demanded as soon as the car chugged to a stop.

"Not yet." He got out of the car and walked around to get her out. "Hold on to me." His heart was pounding nervously in his chest. He couldn't say he'd exactly prepared himself for this moment, but there was no backing out now. Looking left and right, he saw horses _everywhere_. Pasture, though barren with winter, stretched for what seemed to be miles; there were at least four barns in sight that surrounded the house. An arena was off to the side. A gray horse was tied there, fully tacked and ready to be ridden, but no one was nearby. He pulled his gaze away and tugged her toward the house. "There are steps here."

She jabbed at them with her cane before unsteadily climbing up them. He kept his arms about her thin waist. "This better be worth it," she breathed once she determined there were no more steps. "If you just brought me to a whorehouse, Diaval, I will knock you unconscious."

"I promise it's not a whorehouse." He struggled to open the front door and pulled her inside. To his left was a grand kitchen. They were supposed to be in the living room. He veered right. He could see a few limbs where people were hidden beneath and behind furniture. "Are you ready?" he whispered in one pointed ear. She nodded shakily. He kissed her cheek and reached back to untie the blindfold. It fell free.

She blinked several times, eyes adjusting to the bright light, while everyone launched from their hiding places. "_Surprise!_" they shouted. Then chaos ensued. Young children ran around shrieking with streamers. Adults surged upon them, and Diaval kept her hand trapped in his. Some pinched her cheek; others immediately dove for hugs and kisses; and she did her best to dodge all of them, trying to get space to take in it all.

One willowy man towered over the rest of them. He pushed through the crowd. His face was wrinkled, black hair going gray in places, but the sight of him pushed the air from Maleficent's lungs. Diaval recognized him only by voice, and he automatically shifted closer to her as the man encroached like a predator. "Mal." Lysander's voice silenced the room. He came closer to her. Tears glimmered in his eyes.

"Dad." Her voice was stiff. She squeezed Diaval's hand tight enough to hurt.

"Happy birthday."

She narrowed her eyes. "You never cared about my birthday before. I fail to see how that has changed." She forced her hands to be still and stop trembling, betraying her innermost fear.

He opened his arms to her with a watery smile. "We missed you." She took a step back, away from his inviting embrace. "Come now, Mal. Come home." His eyes were desperate. "You belong here." Who was he to tell her that? What did he know about her place of belonging? "Your…_friend_…said that you've made an excellent recovery." His eyes scanned over Diaval distrustfully. "We've got Silver's colt ready for you, all saddled up in the arena. I'm sure you'll—"

Her mouth dropped open with hurt. So here they were again. The same place they left off when she'd first run. He wanted her to ride. Had this been Diaval's plan? "Is that all this is?" she demanded. Lysander fell silent. "Is this some ploy to get me to do what you want me to do?"

His lips trembled. "No, Mal, of course not! We just—your dreams, you deserve to fulfill—"

"They weren't _my_ dreams, Dad. They were _yours._" She took a step back. Her hand fell from Diaval's. "Where's Mom? Is she outside, waiting for me to come running healthy and wholesome to serve her beck and call?"

There was an awkward silence before someone piped up, "Your mom's dead, Maleficent." All eyes were on her, terrified from her angry explosion. Her lips were frozen in a parted stare. A different voice provided, "She drove into the lake a year after you disappeared."

Lysander tried again. "Mal, your friend—"

"It's _Millie_," she insisted coldly, "and he's my _boy_friend, Dad."

Dark green eyes flickered away from her. "I have chosen to overlook that particular idiotic lapse in your judgment." He opened his mouth to continue, but she wasn't listening. Unable to stand another moment in that room, she turned and stormed out. She ran; she ran when she was afraid, because she was a coward. Her cane clicked dully against the hardwood floor. She limped out the front door, down the steps that they'd refused to level when it'd first happened and she could barely lift her feet from the ground. She climbed into the passenger side of the car.

Diaval stared from the door where Maleficent had just left to her father and back again. "Sir, if I may—"

"You may not." Lysander turned to head up the stairs. Before the younger man could say anything else, he continued, "You do whatever the hell you like with her. She's not my daughter anymore." The family surrounding seemed to give a collective gasp. Diaval felt tears rise to his eyes, tears of anger and hurt and guilt. How could he have been so stupid? He should have known that this was a bad idea.

"I'm sorry to have bothered all of you," he quipped. "I thought you cared about her as much as I do. But apparently I was wrong." He turned to leave, but not before a hand connected with his face. He wasn't sure whose it was. It didn't matter to him. It didn't hurt as badly as his insides hurt. _I fucked up this time_. He shoveled a hand through his hair and pushed through the crowd. There was a cake in the kitchen. It had the wrong age iced on the top, and there was a horse painted there.

He slowed as he neared the car. Her head was bent slightly, staring out the dirty window to the open pasture. He slid into the seat next to her. There was nothing to say. He went to touch her arm, but thought better of it. Buckling up his seatbelt, he sighed. He'd been looking forward to the dinner they'd prepared to welcome her back, but now he wasn't hungry at all. He weakly cranked the car and pulled out of the driveway. "I'm sorry," he finally whispered.

She touched the bruise forming on his cheek for a moment before looking away, back out the window. "How could you do that to me?" she hissed. He flinched. She should have hit him. It would have hurt less.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, as if that could somehow fix it all. "I thought…I don't know, I was stupid enough to think it would turn out like _The Last Song_ or something."

She was silent for a moment. "You hate Nicholas Sparks," she finally muttered.

"You're right, that was a bad comparison." He took a deep breath. "It was supposed to be like _Finding Nemo_, where Marlin searched the whole ocean for his kid with a gimpy fin, and then in the end they're reunited with a happily ever after."

She raised her trembling voice to a shout. "Stop it, Diaval!" He cringed. "Stop trying to turn me—turn _us_—into a fairytale! I'm not a happily ever after! It doesn't exist for me! Stop trying to turn us into some Danielle Steel perfection! It's not going to work out." Her voice softened, weakened, to something weak and uncertain. "There's no such thing as happily ever after."

He clenched his jaw. He wanted to close his eyes, but he knew he couldn't drive without being able to see. _Stupid, stupid_, he cursed himself. "I thought the same thing until I met you." A single tear left his eye. She didn't see it. He was glad. She kept her eyes on the world whirring by them. His trembling hands didn't want to steer the car correctly. "I love you." As if those words ever fixed anything.

Her voice almost made his heart stop in his chest. "I used to believe you."

He snatched the car over to the side of the road and skidded to a halt. He couldn't drive. He ripped off his seatbelt. It was choking his chest, making it hard to breathe. "Maleficent, don't." He shook his head. "Don't say that, please." She wouldn't look at him. Why wouldn't she look at him? "Look at me!" He reached and grabbed her chin, pulling her face toward him. "I fucked up. I made a mistake, I made a _huge _fucking mistake, but please, please…don't…" He shook his head, unable to muster the words. There was a heat behind his eyes that budded into tears. "Don't do this. Let me try to fix this." Her expression was unreadable. "I love you. And I know it's wrong to ask for another second chance, and I know I've never deserved you, but please let me try to fix this."

Every fiber of her being was trembling, trembling, quaking, falling apart. His words softened her anger at him and morphed it into a shooting pain that went through her chest. She was the one that didn't deserve him. He did everything for her, and she repaid him with anger and hurt. When had she become such a monster? Why did these emotions have to keep coming back to her to awaken the monstrosity of her being? How on earth had she managed to live up to the meaning of her name toward the one she loved the very most? Shaking hands unhooked her seatbelt. What was she doing? She wanted to run. She needed to stay. Her arms folded across her chest, and she leaned nearer to him. He wiped tears from her cheeks that she didn't realize she'd been shedding, and he welcomed her into his arms.

She shakily unbuttoned his shirt. Her fingers itched to touch his bare skin, and she snaked them under the clothing. The feelings of his rippling scars, the poundings of his heart, were comforts to her. They made it easier for her to breathe. He kissed her forehead. "I love you," he repeated.

"I love you," she responded weakly.

He tightened his hold on her and went to rub her back. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," she mumbled. That wasn't what she meant to say at all. She wanted to tell him that he was perfect, that she didn't deserve him, that he would be better off without her because he would. But her jaw didn't want to work.

He rested his crown against hers. "He didn't seem like such a bastard over the phone."

She took a deep breath. "Not your fault," she repeated, tracing his scars firmly. "Why…" She shook her head. "Why would you try so hard? Why can't you just do what everyone else does and forget that I have a birthday?"

"I want you to be happy. A plan that clearly backfired." He rubbed the stiffness from her back. "You deserve a family that cares about you. Somebody other than me, because I know I'm not enough."

"You're more than enough."

"Don't kid yourself."

"Don't degrade yourself." She touched the bruised side of his face. He winced. She frowned and pressed her lips there. "You are everything to me. You could have anything you want in life, but you keep coming back to me like I hold something of value to you. You would be better off without me, and you still haven't realized it. I don't deserve anything that you've done for me, and I'm an ungrateful bitch sometimes, and I'm sorry." She kissed his lips before he could respond. One hand kept tracing his scars; the other tangled in his hair.

He touched the hand on his chest. He wanted to pull it away. She didn't want it to move. He broke their kiss. "You are perfection." The hand kept tracing his scars, though her eyes didn't leave his. She had them memorized.

"I'm crippled."

"No, you're not." He brushed his nose along her neck. "I hate that word. Please stop using it." Her skin flushed beneath his touch.

One long fingernail trailed over the longest scar on his chest. "Will you tell me?" she asked. She peered into his black eyes earnestly. She would never force his hand. It was a question, always a question. She wouldn't pull answers from him like teeth. She would wait if he wanted to wait. But he didn't want to wait any longer.

"Let me find a real place to park." He pushed her off of his lap so he could drive and collect his thoughts. She stayed at his side, body pressed against his, in a way that made him feel warm and tingly from head to toe.

"Around the bend to the left, there's an old forest trail with a bunch of land that's owned by no one in particular. The teenagers go there to hang out and get drunk on Friday nights." She gesticulated up ahead, and he nodded in agreement, following her directions without complaint. He wasn't sure how he was going to tell his story. It wasn't a horribly sad tale, really, but he wanted to know how to tell it the right way.

The path was well-worn, presumably from many teenage tailgate parties, but still had a natural feel to it, despite winter's chill biting the leaves dead. "If we get shot by the owner of this property, I'll blame you in the afterlife." The ground was smooth and had few bumps for his old car. Even so, he stopped as soon as the highway was out of sight in his rearview mirror. Her gaze was intent on his, ignoring his attempt at humor. He touched the small of her back, and she naturally shifted toward him, pressing their bodies together.

He was not alone in this. She was with him. She was there. Soft hands touched his chest, a steady comfort. "I'm listening." It wasn't a prodding statement, wasn't an impatient encouragement, but instead just a voice informing him that she was prepared to hear everything he had to say. No matter how long it took.

He touched one of her hands and held it to his chest. His heartbeat was against her palm. Warm. Steady. He wanted to kiss her, but reminded himself that he was supposed to tell her about his scars. So he told her.

_It was the depth of the night when the tell-tale howling of the dogs informed him of his father's return home from another likely failed hunting venture. The man could be heard stumbling about on the porch. Glass shattered. Diaval cringed and curled deeper into his covers. An empty bottle was never a good thing; even a six year old knew that. He wanted to lock his door, but that got him in even more trouble the last time he tried it, so he refrained. The staggering steps made the floorboards creak. They continued past his room. He let out a relieved sigh. His mother's cry came from another room. Guilt would plague him for many years following the gladness he felt that she was getting the brunt of his father's hand instead of him. _

_Morning, as usual, brought a hangover for Corbin Ravenscroft. And, as usual, he didn't believe that he caused the bruises that littered his wife's body. Cassandra merely smiled at him sadly and fixed him the breakfast he requested. The apologies were once again profuse when he realized that he had caused the damage. As always, he admitted he had a problem, and he swore never to repeat his mistakes. But his mistake-counter had run out of trials, and his son was soon going to receive the brunt of his failure. _

_Diaval tried to creep past them on cat's feet, worried about broaching his anger, but the man instead scooped him into his arms and ruffled his hair and let him sit in his lap. The boy loved his father; the father loved his boy. Liquor was the only thing that came between them. He giggled while Corbin told him a tale from beyond, one of the tales he swore would get them rich one day. Cassandra came back into the dining room with French toast. "Diaval, honey, will you get the mail for me?" she asked sweetly. _

_He eagerly jumped to his feet. "Yes, Mama!" _

_ "__Watch for the glass, dear!" She ignored the look Corbin gave her. Her raven-locked imp opened the door and carefully skirted the glass that littered the porch. He dropped to the ground and jogged to the mailbox. _

_The howls rose up, and a loud shriek echoed through the house. A mug full of coffee clattered to the floor and shattered. "I forgot to tie the dogs," Corbin breathed. _

_Diaval couldn't see anything for the blood that streamed in his eyes, but he heard the rifle fire. It was deafening. One dog, then another, then another, and finally the fourth fell from him with pained cries and whimpers. Arms gathered up his small form. His father was crying; he could hear the tremors in his voice and the choked sobs in his chest. "A fucking disappointment," he mumbled while Cassandra hurriedly called for an ambulance. "I'm such a fucking disappointment." _

Maleficent stroked his scars. "Was that when you went to live with your grandparents?"

He nodded. His voice was thick. He didn't want to cry; he wouldn't cry. Crying was pointless. It'd helped when he was young and distraught over what he considered ugliness, but now it was the same as sobbing over spilt milk. "My mom took up heroin after that. They split up, but Gram didn't let me go with her." Her eyes were angry. He didn't want her to be angry. "He wasn't a bad person. He just did a lot of very bad things."

She kissed his bruised cheek once again. "I understand." Her hands wandered over his torso, gently dragging her nails over the more sensitive places. His breath caught in his throat, and he tried to keep from squirming.

"Not in my car, Millie," he tried to scold her.

She stopped. It made him itch worse. Evil twinkled in her eye, and she pulled away from him with pursed lips. "Okay," she agreed. Those emerald gems kept flicking back to him, waiting. Waiting for him to give in to that temptation. He tried to resist it. "You could consider it breaking it in," she prodded. He gave a small smile. She wanted it as badly as he did. Maybe even more. He went to her with open arms and wrapped them around her, promptly earning a deep kiss. "I knew you'd come around."

* * *

The throes of their pleasure washed them into weariness, and he sank down with his cheek on one bra-clad breast. Hadn't he taken that off? He couldn't remember. It didn't matter. His hands absentmindedly rubbed her muscles that were already tensing back up. "That was fun," she remarked.

He averted his eyes. "I like it better when you're on top." To someone else, he might have regretted this confession, but she would never judge him for something as silly as that.

She gave a soft chuckle. "Alright. We'll do it your way from now on." She shifted upward and turned into a more comfortable position without jostling him too badly. "I thought you might like a change."

He settled his head better on her shoulder. It felt good to be held against her mostly bare skin. Her arms held him close to her. "I hate worrying that I'll hurt you," he admitted. He'd been careful. Too careful? Perhaps.

"You would never hurt me," she declared. Softer, she conceded, "But if it makes you feel better, we won't do this again, okay?" He mumbled something unintelligible and clung to her like a child to his teddy bear. A smile planted itself on his lips and grew. She kissed those lips, but his eyes were sealed closed. "You still have to drive us home, silly." He didn't seem to be planning on moving soon.

She supposed there was no hurt in sleeping; no one would see them out in the woods. A quick push of a button locked the doors. She grabbed the blanket that she knew he kept under his seat and spread it over them. With care, she turned onto her side and used her arm to cushion her head. He snuggled closer to her. "Love you, Millie." One of his arms slid upward and gradually found its way under her head.

She tried to push the arm away; he hated awakening with numb limbs where she'd slept on him. But he was adamant, and she eventually caved to his will. "Sleep well, pet," she whispered. One dainty finger traced the scar by his eye. His face was burrowed under her chin, raven locks tickling her lips. She fell asleep warmed by his body heat.

* * *

**A/N: I'm going to try to get AO3 caught up with FF soon (soon as in tonight or tomorrow) so those of you that would be interested in the lemony part will get to read it. I just wanted to keep the rating down on this.**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Ugh my muse is running wild. I have so many Maleval things I want to write, but I want to finish this first, but I never want this to end because this is my personal favorite fanfiction that I have ever written. And *gag* summer homework still has not been completed. I have six days now to read two novels and do whatever the hell my world history teacher wants me to do (I haven't really looked at that much yet...) **

**Someone asked on another site if I plan on introducing Aurora in this fic. The answer is yes, Aurora will be included in this story, though probably not how you might expect. **

* * *

Maleficent held her head in her hands while she waited for Diaval to come back from job hunting. She didn't want to have this conversation with him, but it had to happen. He was prepared to jump headlong into whatever came their way and think about it later, and she didn't want him to make a rash decision that he would regret. Would he regret anything concerning her? She didn't think so. But she needed to be sure.

Almost as though summoned from her thoughts, his old car chugged back up the driveway, and he came in the house. She looked up at him and smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. He frowned in response and sat beside her. "McDonalds doesn't even want me. I must be some kind of devil's spawn to society." He pecked her cheek, trying to encourage a brighter expression on her face. "Tell me all of the exciting things that have happened since I left here two hours ago."

Her smile fell away. "Diaval…" Her throat went dry. She swallowed. "Have you thought this over?"

"Thought what over?"

"Moving away. Living together." She didn't add _getting married_, because she'd never imagined herself in a white dress walking down an aisle with people she didn't even know watching her.

He trailed his thumb over one severe cheekbone. "Of course I have. I want to be with you, no matter where I am. I thought we already went over this." His eyebrows knitted into a puzzled frown. "Would you rather stay here? I'm fine with that, if you don't want to go away, or if you would prefer that I stay in my own house."

"No, it's none of that." She grabbed his hand upon impulse and pressed his palm to her lips. "But I don't want you to get into anything with me that you'll regret later." He gave her a perplexed grimace. She elaborated, "I'm going to need a lot of extra things when I get older. I might be in a wheelchair by the time I'm sixty, and I don't want to strap you down. Nursing homes are expensive—"

"Nursing homes?" he blurted, shock written across his face. Before she could continue, he pressed his lips to hers. "I wouldn't put you in a nursing home unless _I_ had to be in a nursing home," he murmured against her. He rested his forehead against hers. "I love you, Maleficent, and that's not going to change when you get gray hair or when your skin wrinkles or when you can't walk anymore. Don't you understand?"

Her eyes flickered down, staring at where their hands caught each other and squeezed with intertwined fingers. She didn't understand. She didn't understand how he was so devoted to her. But she tried to imagine a world where their roles were reversed, where she was fit and he wasn't, and she knew that she would never have him placed somewhere for nurses to look after. "Yes, I do." One hand pulled free from his and traced his neck. "Maybe for the next interview, we should try to hide your hickeys." The places where she'd marked him as her own stood out in stark contrast of his pale skin.

"Maybe." He shivered where her fingers left tingling sensations through his scars. "Or we could just say screw them all and spend eternity having fun."

"By eternity, you mean as long as your inheritance lasts?"

He stiffened in fake indignation. "My inheritance is immortal! How dare you suggest anything differently, peasant woman!"

She snorted. "If I'm a peasant, you're a beggar." She stuck her nose up in the air and looked down at him in a way that almost made him laugh aloud.

"Oh, my lady, I beseech thee to forgive my transgressions!" He bowed his head. "If there is any task I may perform to redeem myself, I beg of thee to place it before me so I may correct myself in thine all-seeing eyes." His eyes twinkled in good humor.

She playfully smacked his arm. "What you have done is unforgiveable, poor beggar!" She didn't know why she played along with him. It was childish. Perhaps that was why she did it. Perhaps their childishness, their immaturity, kept them grounded when more stressful matters came to view.

"Then I must tickle thee, my fair lady, to earn thy coveted forgiveness!"

At the word tickle, Maleficent's eyes rounded into saucers, but before she could move to escape, he reached out to her with wriggling fingers, and she was trapped between him and the back of the couch. Her teeth clamped onto her lower lip to hold in the giggling shrieks that threatened to burst forth. She squirmed against him. "Stop! Stop! I forgive you!" Her hands reached to still his, but they had already stopped their light ministrations over her abdomen. "You're horrible," she panted breathlessly.

He kissed her forehead. "I'm yours. No other adjectives matter." His hands were always gentle. They rubbed her back, which moaned in protest of the serious thoughts. "I love you." She was soft and warm against him, her curves smoothly dipping into him. They fit together like lock and key. "If you're done doubting my affection for you, we could start making plans to go house-hunting this weekend."

Guilt pricked in her chest. Doubting him only hurt him. Sometimes she forgot that. "Alright," she agreed. She touched his wrist. "You start. What qualities must our home absolutely possess?"

"I was waiting for you to ask!" He pulled out a sheet of paper with several lines of scrawl. Her eyes widened a bit. "Our house should be one-story." He kept looking at her, as though waiting for her to disapprove. "It needs at least three acres of pasture space."

"Pasture space?"

"Owning a llama is on my bucket list, and they're herd animals, so we'll need two or three."

She nodded, a bit taken aback. "All right. You have your llamas. Continue."

"A minimum of three bedrooms."

This was getting stranger by the minute. "There are two of us. We can share a room. Why do we need three?"

"One can be the library, and the other one will be whatever you want it to be." Of course Diaval would want his own library. "It should on the outskirts of a smaller town, preferably with countryside or forests."

"So basically Ulstead?" she teased.

He glared at her. "The townspeople have to be _nice_ and _welcoming_." He raised his eyebrows at her in challenge. She nodded for him to continue, but that appeared to be the end of his list. "I guess I should add wheelchair accessible." He didn't want to add it. He didn't want to make himself face the fact that she wouldn't be healthy forever by his side. "And a big garden space." She smiled. He kissed her ruby lips. "I get llamas. Pick your pet of choice." His brow creased. "Preferably no dogs."

She rolled her eyes. "I think you're the only pet I need."

"Oh, surely you want a cat!"

"Certainly not."

"I want a cat," he decided, quickly scrawling _cat_ down on the sheet of paper. "Are you allergic?"

She quickly shook her head. "Don't you think we should actually get the house before we start importing creatures?" she teased. She reached to undo the top buttons on his shirt, which appeared to be choking him. He looked far too white collar to have gone to McDonalds looking for a job. Once his scarred collarbones were exposed, she slid into his lap the way she knew he liked.

He grinned at her and placed his arms about her. "Well, of course. That's why we're going house-hunting this weekend." He leaned with his lips right above her pointed ear. Her skin flushed beneath his warm breaths. "What does this little girl want the elves to make for her Christmas presents?" he whispered.

She snapped her head about and kissed him with passion. One arm looped about his neck while the other traced his scarred collarbones. "But Santa, it's not Christmastime." She could watch his eyes while he constructed the story in his mind, trying to plan each movement out before him.

"The elves and I want to make sure that your Christmas is perfect this year, Millie," he uttered. "We need time to prepare."

She trailed one long fingernail down the scars on his neck. "I don't care what you get me, Santa. I think whatever it is will be perfect." His breath hitched in his throat. His eyes darkened, lips slightly ajar while he struggled to breathe. "But I wish I could have it right now, instead of waiting the rest of these long months."

He trembled a bit. Hot tingles rushed all over him and dove down between his legs. He brushed some of her hair behind her ear. "All you had to do was ask, little girl." He leaned toward her ruby lips and kissed them. They were sweet like honey and red as roses, and they made him yearn for more, more, more. Her hands fisted in his shirt and began to snatch at the buttons. He pulled at the hem of her shirt and stroked her ivory flesh.

They once again became tangled in each other's bare flesh, tendrils of passion winding about them and tying them together. "We really should get better about moving to the bed," she commented loosely as his hands massaged her shoulders. His skin was hot to the touch. Her eyes fell closed, pleasantly spent. He was maddening, every inch of him, every fiber of his being. His smell was a drug; the taste of him was intoxicating. He made her feel things that she had sworn to never feel again, but now she unashamedly bore those very same emotions.

"Maybe that'll be our goal when we get our own house." He kissed the faint red marks he'd left on her soft neck. "Love you." He traced patterns on her lower back, gradually dipping down to stroke her bare buttocks.

She pushed her face into the crook of his neck and gave a soft hum in response. He touched her tenderly and sweetly, never once responding to the sharp bits of pain she gave him with her teeth and nails. "Why are you so gentle?" she murmured sleepily.

He tucked a lock behind her ear. "It worries me less. I hate thinking I might hurt you."

She sighed wearily. "I'm not ceramic," she reminded him sharply. Were a few hickeys and bite marks too much to ask for? He looked away from her. She regretted her sharp words, fearing they'd bruised his ego. They were both still learning a lot about each other; she had the upper hand in experience, but that didn't mean she had tons to go off of. "Diaval, you won't hurt me. I know that. Why don't you?"

His face corkscrewed as though he was trying to open a pickle jar by telekinesis. "Can't we just accept that I am inherently concerned with your welfare and move on?"

"Fine," she assented, though it wasn't fine. He didn't trust himself with her, and she didn't like that. She pushed herself off of him, disturbed from tiredness, and reached for her clothes piled on the floor. "I remember the days when you didn't act like you were the bull and I was the glass house," she mumbled. His half-lidded eyes flicked up to her. He blinked rapidly, and they widened. "In fact, I think those were the days before we started having sex," she announced pointedly, raising one eyebrow at him.

He yawned. "I think I read somewhere that intentionally withholding intimacy as a form of blackmail is a sign of abuse." He sat up and combed down her long hair with his fingers, quickly pulling the lumpy tangles into a neat braid. "But," he reluctantly continued, "I can…put in a little more effort, if you would like it better." He planted a soft kiss on her cheek. She turned her head to the left just a bit so that their lips could connect. That was all the confirmation he needed. She was not angry at him; she did not hate his insecurities. She loved him regardless, and he loved her to the end of the universe and back again.

* * *

Their realtor was a very bouncy woman in her mid-forties who seemed extremely attracted to Diaval. She kept pinching his cheek and once went to smooch his cheek, though he ducked just in time. More than once, she "accidentally" tripped over Maleficent's cane, which resulted in Diaval staying between them and mediating everything. Maleficent was prepared to jump right in and say that the first house was perfect if only to get rid of the woman—her name was some derivative of Rose, Rosemary or the like, but she couldn't remember it exactly. But Diaval held her left hand in between both of his and kept rubbing it whenever Rose or Rosemary or whatever her name was gave a barely-hidden insult.

The first house would have been great except that the washer and drier were in the basement, and they couldn't scope out a better place for them with the realtor breathing down their necks. "I don't see what the problem with the stairs is," she commented, flipping a blonde strand behind her ear with a coy smile.

"Stairs aren't my thing," Maleficent replied through grated teeth. She tapped her cane upon the tile floor pointedly.

Diaval felt like he was now holding her hand to keep her from slapping their nutty realtor rather than offering moral support from the blatant insults the woman kept tossing their way. "Perhaps you can take us to the next house now, Rose…um, Roseanne?" He hoped that was her name.

The blonde flipped her hair again girlishly. "Of course!" she squealed flippantly. She grabbed Diaval's bicep, and he tugged his arm from her grasp, securing his grip on Maleficent. He wondered how much it would cost to bail him out of jail if he knocked the realtor out with her cane and they ran for the hills. They followed her out of the house and to the minivan that they begrudgingly let her drive them around in. "One of you could sit in front, you know. There's so much to see in Lichtenburg."

_Not really_, Maleficent silently replied. The town was only a bit bigger than Ulstead, though the people were arguably friendlier. Diaval politely responded, "We'll sit together, thank you." He scooted in next to her. His fingers pried hers from around her cane, and she relaxed at his gentle touch. Roseanne made several attempts at conversation to which they didn't respond, and they fell into an awkward silence. He kissed Maleficent's cheek and whispered, "I love you."

The blonde's eyes glowered at her in the rearview mirror, and she snapped, "No PDA in the client transportation van!" Diaval resisted the urge to protectively pull her closer from the way she looked upon his girlfriend like a vulture would look at a piece of warm meat. The fake charm came back into her voice when they pulled up in the driveway of another house. "Here we are! 528 Greenwood Road." She jumped out of the car like a fat cat.

Diaval's patience was tried repeatedly during the visit as he tried to explain that the house simply wasn't what they were looking for. The windows were ancient, some cracked in places. Different places in the floor felt soft beneath his feet, and he kept pulling Maleficent out of the way to keep her from poking a hole in the floor with her cane. So their journey continued, this one about ten minutes.

This house was a single-story with no basement. It had four bedrooms, two baths, a quaint living room, and a large kitchen, even if it was painted bubble gum pink. "What are we going to do with _four_ bedrooms?" Maleficent whispered to him when Roseanne was out of earshot.

"Simple. This is our room." He pointed to the master bedroom. "That's the library." The room right across from theirs. "This room is whatever you want it to be." They had already decided that, after all. "And this one can be a guest bedroom for whenever you get pissed at me and kick me out of the bed." She didn't look sold. "Come on. This is almost exactly what we're looking for, isn't it? Look at that garden space. It's huge! And the fence is already half-built, for our llamas."

"The kitchen is _pink_."

"We'll repaint. What's your favorite color?"

"Black."

He bit his lip. "I'll use my meager education to deduce that we shouldn't paint our kitchen black. What about green?"

She gave a soft laugh. "Alright."

He beamed at her. "Is this our house, then?"

"This is our house," she confirmed quietly.

"Yes!" he shouted. He almost picked her up to bring her lips to his. Her cane clattered to the floor in shock. He gathered her into a bear hug. "I love you."

"I love you, too." She squeezed him tightly, and he kissed her again. If someone had told her three years ago that a man would move across the road from her and change her life forever, she would have laughed in their face. She would have told them that men weren't the effort of loving them. She would have recalled every moment of Stefan's betrayal and sworn to herself to never, ever even consider loving again. And yet, here she was, being embraced by her neighbor who had become so much more.

"This is our house." His voice was hoarse with disbelief. "Dammit, let's buy this house!" He pulled her in for another kiss. "This is our house."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: This chapter is basically really pointless. All of its contents are basically transitioning from one house to another, so it's a bit boring. There was also an extremely awkward bit of pre-smut in the middle that I cut out, again to keep the rating T. It's so hard ****_not_**** to write smut for this AU; it's driving me crazy. But anyway, the uncensored version will be on AO3 and Tumblr (assuming I ever get Tumblr up-to-date with my updates.)**

* * *

The following days were a blur of paperwork, familiarizing themselves with their new town, and of course moving. They sold most of their furniture in a mass yard sale. Diaval took care to gather all of the awards that Maleficent had tacked up in the barn where Nikita once resided. He blew the dust off of trophies and scraps of newspaper articles, and he reread the words that he'd once memorized. _Maleficent Moors, queen of cross country_. _The next youngest gold medal Olympian in eventing?_ _Another win for Maleficent Moors and her mount, Sterling Silver. _Some trophies, the older ones, were clearly fake plastic from competitions when she was young, while others were heftier with real metal. Then, burrowed behind all of them, he found a sheet of newspaper that he hadn't seen before. _Near-paralysis of prospective Olympian—Accident?_ With a ruffled brow, he scanned over it. The picture showed her limp form trapped beneath a huge white stallion, lying at the base of a several jumping steps.

He read the article quickly. It included details that she had never told him. He couldn't explain his interest in it except that curiosity was an innate aspect of his life, and he had many questions he wanted to ask but didn't to keep from hurting her. _Father Lysander Moors has accused twenty-one year old Stefan Kingsmith of placing the needle under the saddle pad. Mother Hermia denies this, stating that "her daughter trusts Stefan and so does she."_ His lips curled downward. Of course the press would have spoken to her parents, rather than going to her to get the answers. He sighed and looked away. It was grief a thousand years gone. He was hers now, and he hoped that she was his. He folded the paper neatly among the others and went to put them away in a box he had prepared for them. They were in the past. He and Maleficent had a future to look forward to.

He found her standing over Nikita's small marking stone. Quietly approaching, he touched her elbow. She turned to him with a small smile despite the tear that rolled down her cheek. He kissed it away. "Are you ready to go?" he asked quietly. The final trip. When they left the place they'd become neighbors this time, they would never return. "Or do you also need to say goodbye to your tomato plants?" he teased.

She nuzzled his jawline. "Let's go." She headed toward her truck, both the bed and the horse trailer behind it laden with the stuff they'd decided to keep.

He touched her cheek. "I have to stop somewhere." Her eyes immediately questioned him. "It's a surprise."

She deadpanned, "It better be a hell of a lot better than your last surprise."

He cringed. "It is. This I know with certainty." He was still waiting for her to come up with some creative revenge to pay him back. "We have conversed about this surprise and ordained that we are both okay with it, okay? So it's not like an_ actual_ surprise." He bent to kiss her, and she accepted the touch of his lips graciously. "It's a house-warming gift."

"Alright," she agreed half-heartedly. Perhaps, if it was pleasant, it would make up for the hand grenade that had been her last birthday. If it wasn't, she could resign herself to never accepting one of his well-intentioned surprises again. "I'll get the small stuff unloaded when I get there so we can trip over it when we move your bookshelves." Most of the _small stuff_ was really just boxes of their books.

He pecked her lips once more. "Let's go home." It really would be home, wouldn't it? It would be home of the best sort.

* * *

Maleficent had never before in her life been _stuck_. Horse people were notoriously good at getting out of tight spots; it was never a good idea to be stuck somewhere with a creature that weighed more than half a ton. Yet here she was, pinned to the wall by the bookshelf that her independence complex had encouraged her to move by herself. The wood, while light, was as tall as she was, and it had conveniently fallen across the entrance where the living room converged into the wide hallway. Giving up on righting it, she sighed and stumbled away from it. She had two options—calling Diaval and telling him that she'd managed to get stuck in their house, or waiting for him to arrive with his damned surprise. She decided on the latter. She would _not_ be subject to the shame of calling him and hearing his amusement.

She headed back to the room that would soon be theirs and sat down with her back to the wall. The bathroom connected to their bedroom was much larger than the one in her old home; the tub was as big as a hot tub she might have used in a hotel swimming pool. She considered running a bath, but her clean clothes were still in the truck, and she was trapped in her own home.

Blessedly, only a few minutes passed before Diaval entered. "Millie?" he called out hesitantly. "Where are you?"

She pulled herself up with her cane and staggered into the hallway. She could already feel her back aching from the strain of trying to do something she was incapable of. She should have known better. She couldn't've moved that bookcase by herself if she was still fit. "I've been trapped by your massive bookshelf." She limped to where the huge wood structure separated them.

He reached across it with open arms. "Are you hurt?" He touched her shoulders, scanning over her quickly.

"I'm fine." A white lie never hurt anyone. She bent forward to kiss him.

He brushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear. "Alright." He bent to lift the huge creation that he guiltily had enough to books to fill. She helped him right it. "Let's get this to the library, shall we?" She nodded. Her left hand took her cane while her right struggled to find a good hold. She was not going to be the passive one in moving their stuff around. But her back ached even more furiously at the thought that he had two more of these book-holding monsters. They pushed the shelf into the back of the room. "Do you think my loveseat would look good in front of the window?" he asked, mentally trying to plot out where he was going to put everything.

She shrugged. "This is your room. I still haven't decided what to do with the other one." She tilted her head. "Now what was that about a surprise?" Her eyes regarded him warily.

"Oh!" He clapped his hands. "C'mon." He took her hand and pulled her to the living room, where their sofa was already situated against the wall. He pulled up a box and placed it in her lap. It was about the size of a shoe box, but double the height, and holes were poked in all sides. She tentatively slid open the lid. A tiny bundle of gray fur peered up at her. And then it _meowed_. "Isn't she adorable?" Diaval looked like he was about to vomit glitter.

Maleficent lifted the kitten from the box. The creature fit easily in her hand. "I suppose," she grated. Tiny claws pawed at her. Her fluff extended. She stood. And that was when Maleficent noticed her deformed forelegs. They were bowed in at the knees, buckling whenever the kitten tried to walk. "You got me a crippled cat," she deadpanned.

Diaval's face fell in displeasure. He took the kitten and promptly began to coo at it. "Don't listen to her, Pebble, you're not crippled. You're _special_." _Meow!_ "I like you just the way you are."

Maleficent could have groaned. "You're pep-talking a cat."

"Don't talk about our child that way!"

"It's a _cat!_"

"She's a she, thank you very much!" He rubbed the tiny head with two fingers. A loud purr—too loud for such a small creation—burbled up from her chest. "She's precious," he cooed. "Love her or I'll make you," he threatened.

She reluctantly took the fluff ball away from him and placed her on her bosom. The soft green-gray eyes blinked at her. A pink, wet nose touched hers, and Pebble began to purr the instant her fingernails combed through her fluff. "Where did you find a crippled cat?" she asked softly, almost reverently, as the kitten appeared to situate herself for a nap.

Diaval glared at her for the use of the C-word, but he didn't reprimand her, instead scooting closer. "The humane society, of course. Do you like her?" His arm slid around her shoulders.

Maleficent couldn't say she particularly did, but she nodded anyway. He clearly liked her, and that was enough for the smallest blooms of affection to plant themselves in her heart. "I'm sure she will grow on me," she replied drily.

He kissed her cheek. "I love you." He got up. "I'm going to try to get the rest of our stuff in here, in case it rains tonight. You make sure I don't drop something on her." It was his badly concealed way of keeping her from straining her back too much. She rolled her eyes, but she didn't resist; if she was going to be any good for moving stuff around the next day, it was stupid to keep straining herself.

The front door was almost barricaded by bookshelves and other furniture by the end of the day. Diaval struggled around it and took their suitcases full of clothes back to their bedroom. He hadn't yet set up the frame for the bed, but instead tossed the covers on the bare mattress. She found a large cardboard box and put little bowls of food and water as well as litter in it for the kitten. Then she turned to him and kissed him. Using strength he thought he'd already spent, he lifted her off of the ground. Her cane fell unceremoniously from her hand. He carried her to the bathroom and sat her down on the toilet seat. "What do you think you're doing?" she queried while he tugged her shirt up over her head.

"I'm taking a bath with you," he smartly replied. He unclasped her bra while she began to unbutton his shirt. Their garments all fell free, and he ran the bath a little too warm for their needs. He settled himself behind her. The lights were dim and sleepy in the room. Her scarred back pressed against his scarred chest, and he reached around to kiss the corner of her lips. "I've waited to do this since I first saw this place," he commented. His arms traveled up and down her torso.

She opened her mouth to reply, but a gasp erupted instead from where one hand massaged her breast. "Oh," was all she could weakly manage. She squirmed against him as he repeated the motion. "Diaval! We're taking a bath!" she snapped.

He kissed her neck and then, remembering his promise to her, dragged his teeth downward sharply in a way that made her breath hitch. "Yes, we are." His hand left her breast to grab the cup that they'd placed on the edge of the tub. He shielded her eyes and spilled water over her thick brown hair. It went black with water. Again and again he repeated the motion until her hair was sodden, and he massaged her lilac shampoo into it. "Is this how you're supposed to do it?" he asked her. She gave a jerky nod. He gently scraped his nails over her scalp. She let a soft humming sound.

He covered her eyes with one hand and washed away the soap with the other. It ran down her back and into the water, and it took her troubles with it. Soft hands massaged her back. Then a soapy rag dragged across her flesh. "Oh, Diaval," she whispered at the way he rubbed her. He kneaded her sensitive spots with the washcloth. It felt so good.

She trembled against him. Her back was starting to coil with tension. He washed it away. "You're a little eager," he murmured into her ear. "We need to get you clean, first, my dear." The rugged voice, the voice of an oncoming storm, made her yearn and itch. It was the voice she had fallen in love with. He slid the washcloth into her hand to get the spots he couldn't reach, and then she turned to wash him.

He shivered under her touch. His hands supported the base of her spine while she lifted each of his arms to wash the small tufts of hair beneath them. She rubbed his chest with the flats of her palms and kissed his lips. She did his hair last, carefully rinsing the suds off of him while shielding his closed eyes.

* * *

At morn, Diaval spotted the bruises that dotted her neck and collarbones. She was still asleep. He gathered her into his arms and kissed the marks tenderly while she wrapped her arms about him and crushed her breasts against his chest. "Good morning, my love," he murmured. He stroked her bare, silky flesh. She was beautiful and wholesome beside him. "We need to get out of this bed so I can put the frame together."

She pressed her lips to his voice box and felt his vibrations. "Not right this second. We've got years to get settled in." She sleepily clung to him. It felt so surreal, to be in this place that was their house. It wasn't _her_ house. It wasn't her _parents'_ house. It wasn't _his_ house. It was _their_ house. She thought they'd picked a pretty _damn_ good house.

"Right, right," he agreed. Meow. Meow. Meow. Their kitten had awoken. And she wanted someone's attention. They groaned in unison. Maleficent sat up and shoveled her hand through hair. Her cane was across the room where it had so aptly been discarded before their bath. Her Advil was in her suitcase, also conveniently across the room. Diaval seemed to pick up on her wandering gaze. "Yeah, I got it." Only after successfully tangling his legs in the blankets and falling down, though, did he reach her things. He tossed the Advil at her and picked up her assortment of items, carrying them to her. She grunted a thank you and looked away. "Okay! Today's agenda is…well, first getting our bedroom fixed up the way we like it."

Maleficent yawned. "I want to get the cases into the library before I'm too sore to move." She fiddled around in the suitcase, searching for two items that matched. "Is this acceptable for housework?" she finally asked him, pulling out a pair of black shorts and a muted green t-shirt with a few ravioli sauce stains on the front.

He shrugged. "I would think so." He put on his boxers and staggered out of bed. "I go to seek a great perhaps, and perhaps there will be coffee there."

"Wait for me." She didn't comment on his reference to one of the books she'd read. He'd recommended it, and she couldn't even remember the title, though she knew it was boxed up with the rest of the books and ready to be shelved. He took her arm and pulled her close, only to promptly lose his balance so they thumped against the wall. Their kitten trotted after them with a high tail. "Your cat wants fed," she told him.

"_Our _cat," he corrected. "Our house, our sofa, our room, our bed. We're sharing the cat." He kissed her temple. "Once we get the cases in the library, you are solely responsible for getting the books on the shelves and making sure my literary OCD doesn't lose its mind. Do you understand the power that you currently wield?"

She dramatically bowed her head. "I do. With an ingestion of coffee, I will certainly wield it well, my love." She planted a kiss on his lips to silence the befuddled blathering that was sure to follow her term of endearment. "First by author's last name, then by author's first name, then by title?"

"I love you," he confirmed. He quickly brewed their coffee, and when he neglected to put the third teaspoon of sugar in it, she waited patiently with a raised eyebrow until he put it in with a sigh. Hunger curled in his belly, but their eating utensils and cooking supplies hadn't yet been unloaded. She never minded skipping breakfast. He always minded skipping breakfast. He resigned himself to a big lunch and proceeded toward the second bookcase. She helped him lift it with the meager strength she could manage, and they struggled into the room. The third seemed only heavier. Then, she was left alone in the room with ten huge boxes of books.

Organization was not an attribute of Maleficent; having spent most of her life as a loner, she could live as long as she knew where her things were. But patience was one of her finer qualities, and she began to sort the books by author as she came across them. She wondered where he had kept all of his books in his old house; she had never seen them.

She started with making a stack three feet high of Stephen King books. It appeared that, between them, they had almost any book he'd ever written and sundry—they each had a copy of several of his more popular ones. She alphabetized them quickly and pushed them into the corner of the room. To her surprise, he also had quite a few Nicholas Sparks books, despite his claim to hate the recycled storylines and lack of character depth. However, his collection of Danielle Steel was larger. He also had some Nora Roberts works, as well as the classic romances like _Gone with the Wind_ and _Pride and Prejudice_. "Hopeless romantic," she murmured while she alphabetized each small stack of books.

But he wasn't just a hopeless romantic. He clearly loved horror (why else would he own all those Stephen King books as well as Bentley Little and Dean Koontz?) and fantasy (as evidenced by his boxed sets of _Harry Potter_ and _Lord of the Rings_). Popular young adult titles popped out at her, things such as _Twilight_ and _The Perks of Being a Wallflower_, and he owned a small multitude of poetry books. She realized that he didn't read because he liked a story to be told a certain way, but he instead read just because he enjoyed reading. The copies of books that he'd recommended to her were well-worn and loved, while others weren't so destroyed but instead had notes scrawled in the margins pointing out little plot holes and missing details.

Thus she began her task of shelving their books while Pebbles batted at dust bunnies that floated from the boxes. The cat wasn't as crippled as she thought, she mused while she sorted the books out carefully and tried to remember her alphabet. He peeked in on her. "Everything going good in here?"

She nodded absently while she shuffled around Steel and Sparks. Curse her mind that got scrambled with anything regarding organization. "Yeah, it's great." She met the end of the first case in the middle of John Green. "Shit." With a sigh, she placed two more books on the next case. "It's as peachy as grapes. What about you?"

He strode over to her and lifted half of the massive Stephen King stack. "I got the living room set up; it needs your expert opinion. All of the kitchen stuff is unloaded and our table is set up, and our bed is put together but I haven't been able to get all the end tables put where you want them yet. The darker one won't fit in the—"

She pressed a finger to his lips. "An _okay_ would have sufficed."

He smiled. "Okay." He kissed the birthmark on her brow. "We have a house."

"We have a house," she repeated, letting it soak in once again. The cat pawed at their feet. "We have a cat."

"We have a house where we can have our cat, and we can live here happily ever after."

She traced the scars on his collarbones. "You don't have any fairytale books," she pointed out after a long moment. She watched the goose bumps erupt under her touch, and she smiled softly.

He kissed her brow once again. "I don't need to read fairytales. I'm living in one."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: I'm sorry that the chapters won't be as long as they previously were. School starts in two days, and I really don't know how much time I'm going to have to write. I've been working my ass off recently to finish my summer homework that should've been done back in June. But, anyway, have at this update. **

* * *

Weeks bled into months which turned into a year. Life wasn't perfect for the two; they had their spats and bouts of anger. Pebbles grew into a strong young cat whose bone deformities were hardly noticeable. Maleficent found that sleeping beside Diaval every night soothed her back pain immensely, and she never kicked him out of the bed, even the one time he meekly suggested that they invite her "favorite" cousin Balthazar over to see their house. They always made up after their fights with kisses and often much more. His self-confidence grew, and they were no longer an impatient female and a humble male but instead two equals who could fulfill each other's needs with love and devotion.

Which was why it was extremely strange when she rolled over in bed one night to find the area beside her cold. "Diaval?" she called. The lights in the bathroom were off. Pebbles was curled at her feet, purring listlessly at the feeling of movement in the bed. "Diaval?" she called again. She grabbed her cane and sleepily wandered up the hall, hoping to find him in the kitchen fixing a midnight snack. All was quiet in the house except for the clicking of her cane against the floor. She peered outside at the fence they had just finished repairing. He wasn't outside, but her truck was gone. With another long squint, she realized that her trailer was also gone.

Her mouth curled downward into a frown, and she hurried back inside. He disappeared in the black of night without leaving a note or, more importantly, without waking her and taking her with him. She wouldn't have cared where he went; she would have gone with him regardless. For him to leave so early, it had to be important. Why wouldn't he have taken her? She reached for her phone and quickly dialed his number, but it rang beside her. Her panic grew. "Diaval," she whimpered. Where could he have gone? Should she report him missing? She swallowed hard. _Calm down, Millie. Diaval is not stupid. He will be home soon_.

But he wasn't home soon. Minutes blended into an hour. She was near tears with worry. She started to shamelessly look through his phone for any indication of where he might've gone. His only text messages were from her, things they'd exchanged when he was on his break at work. But in his recent calls, she found an unknown number from only an hour before. Who would've been calling him at twelve AM? She intended to find out.

A masculine voice at the end of the line grunted something unintelligible at her. She snapped, "Who is this?"

There was a brief pause before the man at the other end of the line greeted in an incredulous tone, "Maleficent?"

Her mouth went dry. "Balthazar." She shook her head rapidly, trying to clear her head. "What's happening? Where is Diaval?" She could only assume he would know.

"He didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

There was another silent pause before he continued, "Lysander's dead. There was—hell, I don't know_ what_ there was. He was drunk as skunk when I went to visit him. Hooked up his trailer and loaded one of his—guess nobody told you about the new Arabian bloodline he started, but anyway—loaded up one of his new mares, this ugly old creature he rescued a month or so ago." He cleared his throat. "But I don't know anything after that. Got a call from the cops telling me to come get the horse, but I don't do horses anymore." _Anymore_, implying he didn't do horses after she became crippled. That was probably a good thing.

"So you just decided to call my boyfriend in the middle of the night to come pick up the problem you didn't want to worry about?" she demanded.

The silence again. Balthazar liked using silence to gather his thoughts. "Wasn't really my decision, Mal—Millie, I mean. He left all the horses to you in the will."

It was her turn to not know what say. "He disowned me," she uttered. "Diaval told me."

"I won't refute that. Me 'n the cousins, we got everything else. The house, the land, the tack, the money. But every horse in that pasture is your responsibility now." He cleared his throat. "Your guy just pulled up, I need to go show him where—"

"I need to talk to him." There was brief sound of slamming doors and crunching gravel, and she could hear the motor of her truck running. Then steady breaths met her ear. "Diaval?" she whispered. "Are you okay?"

She leaned into the phone when he began to speak. "I'm here. I love you." He sounded tired. Why would he have gone so quickly, so thoughtlessly? "Are _you _okay?"

"I wish you were here," she confessed. But she was okay. She was okay the instant she heard his voice. "I was so scared, I thought you'd…" She shook her head. She wouldn't admit that she'd feared he'd left her. "Why didn't you wake me up and take me with you?" she almost snarled at him.

He sighed deeply. "I thought you'd say no. And I…I don't know, I felt obligated. I know it's silly, but…I'm sorry. I'll be home soon. Horse in tow."

She didn't care about the horse. She just wanted him back with her. She could be angry about the horse later. She could stamp her foot and throw a fit, she could cry if she wanted; as long as he was close to her, she could do anything she liked. When he returned, she would be angry. She would resent her father for punishing her under the burden of his horses. She would hate the creature Diaval brought along with him. But she would do all that once he was home safe once more. "Be safe," she whispered into the phone. "I love you."

"I love you, too. I'll see you soon."

Soon was three long hours, and the black night sky had begun to turn dark purple when an exhausted Diaval stumbled out of the truck and into her arms. He was dirty and smelled like horse, such a familiar comfort, bringing so many unwanted memories to the surface. He kissed her lips, and she inhaled his smell. There was a gash on his cheek. "What happened?" she whispered, reaching toward it.

He winced at her touch, but didn't pull away. "She's not, um, friendly. About the third time she was going to kick me, I got out of the way, but there was a nail sticking out in the door of your trailer and it just caught." He traced her cheekbones. "I thought we could…I don't know." He looked so utterly exhausted.

Her love for him overrode any anger she felt, and she pushed him back into the truck. "Back it up to our gates. We'll put her in the pasture and worry about her later." He obeyed without question, almost bumping into the fence that they had worked so hard to repair. She slid out and he followed. "Is she tied?" she demanded.

He nodded and stepped toward the hatch in the trailer. He opened slowly, but the terrified mare within still gave a loud snort and stomped the ground. She caught the barest glimpse of pale head with an eye ringed white with terror. The mare snatched against her bounds. Diaval unhooked her halter quickly, but not quickly enough; she slammed his hand against the wall. "Fuck!" he snarled. He stumbled back and fell on his butt, clutching his wrist. Maleficent slammed the hatch closed; she didn't care if she scared the horse or not.

"Is it broken?" she asked when it appeared that he was done cursing.

"Don't think so," he mumbled, staggering to his feet once again. She pulled the gates open while he went to open the trailer doors. She gave a nod of affirmation, and he let the trailer door swing open. The mare dashed out in a clang of hoofs and metal. Her coat, though stained with dirt and blood from various gashes she'd probably received in the crash, was a pretty golden with white splashes. Maleficent's mind immediately began speaking horse lingo that she hadn't used in years. _Palomino tobiano_, she labeled the coat color. Dished face, flagged tail, arched neck. There was no doubt that the mare was an Arabian, much smaller than the large horses she'd ridden so long ago. Nikita had been a bit over sixteen hands, Silver had been right at seventeen, but this mare could scarcely be fourteen. Hell, she didn't think she'd ever ridden a horse that small.

She closed and locked the gates. "This will be a problem for us to handle later." She touched his elbow. His black gaze stuck to the mare, who regarded them angrily. "Diaval. You need to go inside and get cleaned up and rest."

He nodded heavily. "Yeah. Sounds good." He turned to kiss her. "Let's take a bath, my dear." Minutes later, she sat behind him in their conveniently large tub and massaged the dirt from his limbs, revealing the large, black bruises on his abdomen that she chose not to mention. "I don't like this," he grumbled. "I like touching you when we wash."

She shushed him. "You're still in the doghouse over this mess. Stop complaining." Her breasts bumped against his back while she rubbed his chest. "Your beautiful self is all dirty," she whispered. The more dirt she washed away, the more prominent the bruises seemed. She lifted his arms and ran the rag down his sides, eliciting a sweet tremble. Then she washed his hair and face, letting the dust from the journey slide into the water about them. He helped her out of the tub with weary limbs and put on some boxers, too tired to worry about the rest. She sported a tank-top and panties when she crawled into bed beside him.

He groggily teased, "Are you going to put me in the punishment bed?" It had become a joke to them; despite the guest bedroom's initial purpose, it had gone unused because of the fact that, no matter how angry they were, they reveled in sleeping beside each other.

"Not today," she returned lightly. She couldn't imagine anything he could do to get himself kicked out of bed. He'd done a few dumb things in their time, but he loved her unconditionally, and it was this reassurance that comforted her when he made a mistake. She was sure it was the same for him (she'd never forgotten the horrified look on his face when she'd petted an elderly man's golden retriever in the park). "Go to sleep," she soothed.

"Love you," he murmured against her neck. She went to softly return those words, but he continued, "Love you bigger than the sky and bluer than the ocean and brighter than the sun, till the end of my time and beyond even that." His voice was raspy with weariness, but his arms clutched her tightly to him. She could feel the love peeling off of him in waves.

Tears glistened in her eyes while she quietly replied, "I love you, too, my handsome poet." She stroked his raven-black locks, brushing them out of his face. Lovingly, she kissed the scars on the sides of his eyes. He nestled closer to her and slipped into slumber. She followed closely behind.

* * *

It was a little after eleven when the dream sent her writhing into wakefulness with soft cries of protest. Warm arms pulled her against his solid chest, and she fought against them for only a moment before she felt a familiar rippling scar pressed to her cheek. "Millie, Millie, it's okay," he soothed while she panted breathlessly. "I've got you, my darling." _Darling_. She didn't think he'd ever used that word before. She liked it. It calmed her racing heartbeat, making it slow to match his. One of his hands came between them to rest above the swell of her left breast, feeling her heartbeat. "Are you alright?"

"I am now." She chased away the memories quickly and reached for a kiss. He provided quickly. "Thank you."

He pulled her on top of him. "I'm already half-undressed for you and everything. Make love to me."

She gave a soft smile and leaned forward, kissing the tip of his nose. "No," she whispered with a wink. He frowned. "You have a serious problem in our backyard that needs to be taken care of. We can talk about other things later."

He rolled her over, careful to keep his hands under her back. "Do I have to make you?" he threatened with a playful gleam in his eye.

"You won't."

"You're right." He conceded defeat and, with a quick kiss on her lips, went to get dressed. "Our problem includes having a horse to take care of, but nothing with which to take care of said horse."

"It most certainly not _our_ problem."

"You're right," he said again. "This one's my problem. The other fifty-odd horses are yours." He winked at her. "But I'll help you take care of yours, if you want." He pulled on jeans and a t-shirt. Seeing the sullen look on her face, he continued, "I jest, Maleficent. I'm sure Balthazar will get rid of the horses for you. He told me something about a mass auction." A mass auction. Dangerous places for horses, especially ex-racers and jumpers like they owned. When a horse was past its prime in that business, he was as likely headed for slaughter as not. But it was the most efficient way of getting rid of them, wasn't it? It was. That didn't make her feel good about it. Pebbles purred and curled around her feet, and she bent to stroke her soft gray fur. With a hiss and flash of claws, the she-cat pelted away. Her lips turned into a frown. Diaval continued to babble on, "We're going to need feed and hay and grooming supplies and halters and lead ropes and lunge lines…"

She rolled her eyes. "And a rubber curry comb, a metal curry comb, a few dandy brushes, a few soft brushes, several hoof picks, show sheen, a mane and tail brush, mane and tail shampoo and conditioner, cowboy magic, plus whatever you think might be remotely useful in keeping that hideous beast."

His eyes widened into saucers. "Oh-kay. Wow. Um. How about I send you to Rural King to pick up all the stuff we need while I attempt to tame it—her?"

Her jaw clenched and her eyes flashed. Surely he wasn't serious? She'd been joking about the supplies they needed to keep a horse. They couldn't keep a horse. Horses were _dangerous_, and if she wasn't living proof of that, she didn't know what was. She stared at him with a strange look. Nightmares from long ago trickled back to her, and an image of his lanky form crushed beyond repair beneath a beast made hot tears sear to her eyes. Her hands closed into fists. "We're not keeping it, Diaval."

He frowned. "Why not, Millie?" A soft hand touched the one that leaned on her cane. Quiet, earnest eyes scanned her face. "We don't have to keep her. But she'll need gentled if we're going to sell her to the right kind of person." His other hand trailed over her cheekbones, and he leaned in to kiss her. "I won't do anything stupid, I promise." Her lips softly met his. "She'll be great when I get her cleaned up. Beautiful, even."

"I don't want you to get hurt." Her voice was juvenile and weak. "Please—Diaval, please don't. Let her be somebody else's problem. Don't do this." She was prepared to beg him. "Just take her to the animal shelter and go to work tomorrow and we can forget this ever happened." Pebbles snaked around their feet, wondering why she wasn't getting fed.

"Maleficent, that's cruel and you know it."

"No, it's not!"

"They'll put her down. They don't have room or funds for a horse."

"I don't care!"

"But you do, don't you?" His eyes bored into hers. "You do care."

"Not as much as I care about you. I won't—I can't let her hurt you." She knew what it was like. Horses were not for shits and giggles. They were serious creatures, the means to an end for millions of rich people worldwide. They were the pawns in a game of money, in the ultimate game of chess of millionaire versus millionaire when the bloodlines meant nothing once the horse and rider were on the course. She'd been a pawn once, too. She supposed she begrudgingly had Stefan to thank for that. If nothing else, it had awakened her to the horrors of her world.

He sighed deeply and lightly pressed his lips to her forehead. "I won't get hurt," he told her certainly. Her eyes didn't trust him. "Just give it today, alright? If there are no broken limbs or digits, we'll see where we go from there. She won't kill me in a day, you know." Warm, strong arms encircled her. "Trust me?" Worded as a question, because to demand her trust was to break it simultaneously. She did not give out her trust freely.

One dainty-fingered hand pressed to his chest. "Always, my love." She could no longer imagine a world where her trust had never been placed in him but instead remained forever locked away. It hurt badly to attempt to think of such a world. She trusted him. She trusted him with her life and with her heart. Was it so hard to trust him with his own? "I will make us some lunch, and you can get started on your pony project."

He kissed her. "I knew you would understand." He clapped his hands together. "Let's make lunch." His arm curled around her waist, and he tugged her up the hall toward their muted green kitchen. Bubble gum pink gone long ago. Pebbles eagerly mewled at their feet, and Diaval poured her some feed. They made turkey sandwiches side by side and ate at the kitchen table. He went outside, leaving Maleficent to watch from the window.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: So I figured you guys deserved one more update before school starts, because I don't know how much I'll be able to update after that. The end is (sorta) in sight. It's probably going to end up around twenty chapters. I know where I want it to be, and it's getting there, piece by delicate piece. This work has been and continues to be the most fun piece I have written, as well as the longest thing that didn't ultimately get abandoned (which I plan it will not). Let's continue this journey!**

* * *

She didn't go outside that day. She didn't go out to check on him or to bring him something to drink; she didn't herd him inside when it was dinner time. She hated to admit it, but she was sulking. It felt as if he'd chosen that hideous beast over her, and she didn't like that feeling. So she was pouting. Even so, she made dinner, and she left the pots on the stove for him when he came in. She put in a movie and petted Pebbles, who curled contentedly in her lap. The gray bundle pawed playfully at her. "You wouldn't ever pick some animal over me, would you, Pebbles?" Maleficent teased while she scratched the cat's chest. "No, I didn't think so." Promptly, the cat hissed and flashed out her silver claws into her flesh before pelting away, leaving the woman to nurse three shallow scratch-marks. It was enough to make her want to scream in frustration.

By nightfall, Diaval reentered the home shirtless. The garment was soiled and torn in places, and his shoulders were scorched red from sunburn. "Dinner's on the stove," she told him flatly. Head lowered in defeat, he stumbled into the kitchen. She rose and went to get their aloe cream, because she was pissed at him but that didn't mean she wanted him to be in pain. "Hold still," she ordered when he sat on the couch with his bowl of stew. She carefully massaged the cream into his skin.

He winced and twitched whenever her nails grazed the burned area. "Stings," he muttered.

"You should've thought about that before going out without sunblock."

"Your bedside manner is lacking."

"Please don't make me slap you with this on my hands." She didn't _think_ she'd ever lay a hand on him, but she wasn't making any promises.

He fell into a sullen silence while she rubbed the gel across his scars. "I'm sorry," he finally mumbled. "This whole thing was a bad idea. I knew better." He grabbed her hand. "Another mistake on me." He turned around to face her. "You are the most important part of my life, and I am sorry that I acted the fool today." He kissed her cheek.

Her golden-green eyes flickered away while she kept rubbing the gel onto his flesh. "I won't say I'm not angry, because I am angry. But my insecurities should not dictate how we live together. I will love you unconditionally for as long as you'll have me." She leaned forward to kiss his lips. He tried to pull her close, but she resisted. "You are currently covered in the nastiest-smelling sunburn cream in the history of the world. I will not make love to you right now."

"Aw, Millie." He went down to suckle on her neck where he knew she liked. "I can't make it up to you right now?" He nipped at her playfully, almost reverently. Worshipful hands grazed over her clothed bosom. "Please?" His tongue slid up her neck. "We can wash this off of me while we…you know…"

She swallowed hard to keep from moaning when he nipped her sweet spot. She could never deny him anything. Arousal blurred her vision and burbled through her veins. "Let's go," she conceded. He kissed her again in victory.

"It's cold," he complained about the water.

She shifted into his lap, kissing him gently. "I didn't want to hurt your sunburn." The cool water rolled the cream off of him. "Let's get busy." And they did.

After their business, they found themselves once again naked in bed, curled together. Diaval kept shifting for his burned flesh until he finally settled with an uncomfortable position facing her. He wrapped a dark tendril of hair around his forefinger. These times, when they were pleasantly spent and wrapped up together, were his favorites. Her fingers crawled across his chest, and he smiled at her. He closed his hands around hers. "Are you still mad at me?" he murmured softly.

"Nnn…" She shook her head and returned his smile. Half-lidded eyes peered at him. She touched the tip of his nose. "I love you." She wriggled nearer to him and nuzzled his jawline. She wanted to hear him speak to her. "Will you read me a story?" she asked. Innocence trickled into her voice, a girlish naiveté that she thought she'd lost long before she'd met him. His voice of an oncoming storm was the first thing she had loved about him. The first and the last, the beginning and the end, was his voice. The first sound she heard in the morning, the last thing she felt at night.

He warmly rubbed her hand in between his and bent to kiss the palm, calloused from so many years of carrying her cane. "Of course, Millie," he murmured. "What about a poem instead?" She shrugged. She didn't care. Anything with his voice was perfect. He reached for the book on his nightstand and winced when the covers chafed against his reddened skin. Then he slowly spilled the secrets of love across her ears, and she listened intently until slumber pulled her away from him.

He awoke in the depth of the night to her struggling against him, mumbling incoherently with discomfort written on her face. "Sh…Sh, Millie, it's okay," he hushed. He smoothed down her tangled hair with gentle hands. She cried out, latching onto his hand with piercing fingernails, and he grimaced. Panic drove her into wakefulness with another loud cry. "Maleficent, hush, I've got you." He pried her fingers off of his hand and wrapped his arms about her. "My dear." He stilled her trembles. How long had it been since she'd faced such terrors alone? He didn't want to think of her ever going through such a thing again. The dreams were bad enough when he woke her and touched her reverently until her fear passed. There had once been a time when she was alone through this, and he hated that she had ever been alone. "Are you alright?" Her brow was sweaty. He wiped it away. "You feel feverish. Do you feel okay?"

She pressed nearer to him and put her arm over his sunburnt chest. After a few more minutes of prodding, she finally croaked, "I'm fine." The rasp in her voice claimed otherwise.

He kissed the birthmark on her brow. "I'll get you some water." He swung out of bed and quickly came back bearing a small cup in each hand, one full of chipped ice and the other holding water. "Sit up. Come on." She was burning but shivering in the same time. He tugged her into a seated position and wrapped the comforter around her. Pebbles, worried, jumped up on the bed. He ignored her. "Here, drink this." He gave tilted the glass of water toward her lips. Her eyes flashed with annoyance, but she didn't struggle. "Were you feeling sick before we went to bed?" She quickly shook her head. He frowned and wiped the sweat from her brow again. "I'll get you a wet rag."

When he returned with the cool rag and placed it on her forehead endearingly, she glared up at him and grated, "You're overreacting. I'm fuh—" She broke off in a cough. "I'm fine."

"I'll decide that, thank you." He pulled her bundle of cloth against him. "I'll take care of you."

"I am unconcerned of that matter," she replied drily. Her chest heaved when she fell into another coughing fit. He squeezed her tighter. "Diaval, you needn't cling to me like a…" She coughed. "…teddy bear." She rested her cheek on his sunburned shoulder. It felt cool to her. She struggled to recollect the day before; had she felt sick? No; she'd been frustrated, certainly, but her health had been in tip-top shape, well enough for them to join together in their bed once again. Now, though, she was metaphorically sick as a dog. She sneezed, and a long string of snot dribbled from her nose. "Gross," she mumbled to herself.

She tried to extricate herself from the tangle of covers to get to the tissues, but Diaval made her movements cease. "Hold still, I got it." He pulled out a tissue and quickly wiped away all of the slime. "Blow," he ordered softly, and she didn't have the willpower to argue against him. One smooth throw made the soiled tissue arc toward the trashcan, but not before Pebbles batted it out of the air. "Pebbles! No!" he cried in dismay. The cat's claws tore it. "No! Give that back!" He left the bed with Maleficent exchanging between breathing, coughing, and laughing. Finally, he was able to chase down the bundle of gray fur and disposed of the soiled tissue. He dragged the trashcan over to the side of the bed. "There."

Maleficent rested her cheek on his chest again. "I love you," she whispered sleepily.

He trailed his fingers over her jawline. "I love you. In fact, I would like to kiss you, but I really don't want to get sick."

"Understandable. Sing me that song you like so much, won't you?" she requested with eyes half-lidded.

"Of course. It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine?"

* * *

When she rolled over several hours later, Diaval was not beside her. She spotted a note next to a thermos. _Have some hot chocolate, my dear. I had to get some horse stuff from Rural King. Don't do anything I wouldn't want you to do, and call me if you feel worse or even if you just want to call me. Missing you already. Love, Diaval._ His scrawl was both neat and sloppy in the same way. She smiled at it softly. Horse stuff. So he was planning on keeping the beast. She didn't like that. But he deserved to do the things he wanted to do, even if she didn't want him to do them, even if she feared for his safety.

She stumbled out of the bed shivering like a fool and managed to stagger to the bathroom. She coughed roughly and spat up phlegm into a tissue that she quickly threw away. Pebbles twisted around her feet in concern. "Go away! Scat!" She batted her away with her cane. "I'll have nothing of you right now. There are kibbles in your bowl if you are hungry. Now go! Shoo!" She struggled back to her bed and curled up in the covers, but not without a quick glance in the mirror. She looked like shit. Her hair was a matted mess of sweat; her eyes were glassy and dull; she was paler even than usual with red, runny nose. "Ugh." She tried to find a comfortable position, but her body ached and whined and moaned. Offended, Pebbles rushed away, but she paid the cat no heed and sipped her hot chocolate.

Then her phone rang. She lazily picked it up after a second ring. "Diaval?" she mumbled at the caller ID.

"Millie! Are you okay? How do you feel?"

"The same," she replied drily with a weak sniffle.

"I'll be home soon, okay? I love you." She made to consider the call over and hang up, but he continued, "Wait, do you want something to eat? I can pick something up while I'm out."

She shook her head. "No, I'm not hungry." As if that fact was surprising.

"Love you."

"Love you too." She reached for a brush, but it was too far away. Not worth the effort. "Drive safe. No speeding."

He laughed, and it made a smile curl to her lips. "Understood, my sweet. I'll see you soon." For a few moments, she listened to his breathing before she hung up, knowing he would never hang up first and it was ridiculous to think so. She put the phone back on the nightstand and tried to curl up comfortably, but it was hard without his warmth by her side. Going to sleep without him was a feat that she could not accomplish alone, and Pebbles had been thoroughly offended to the point of refusing to sleep beside her so that she ended up propping herself up on pillows and reading from the poetry book he'd read from in the night. His voice was all across her mind, speaking the words into her ear as if he were really right beside her.

Though she didn't remember falling asleep, soon he was lifting the book from her face. Her eyes flickered open. "You're home," she croaked.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he apologized. He sat beside her and put the straw to her lips. "Drink. I shouldn't have left." He smelled horsy. "But Aurora had to be fed."

She sucked at the straw eagerly, almost choking herself. "Aurora?" she questioned with sleepy eyes.

"She needs a name, doesn't she?"

"I thought beast was a fine name."

He frowned. "She's not a beast. She's just misunderstood." He gathered her hair in his hands and began to brush through it. "Your fever hasn't broken." He placed a hand to her forehead. "Have you taken anything for it?" She shook her head. He quickly provided her with some Advil. "Do you need anything?" He brushed through her hair methodically and steadily with concern in his eyes.

She shook her head. "You are all I need right now." She shivered and felt sweat slide between her breasts. "You and a bath," she conceded. But her eyes were tired of staying open, and as soon as he finished weaving her hair into a braid to prevent it from tangling, she rolled onto her side and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He kissed her forehead. "I love you." She mumbled incoherently against him. "Go to sleep, love. I'll be here when you wake, and I'll give you a bath." She grunted in response. Softly, almost inaudibly, he sang, "Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee, all through the night. Guardian angels, god hath sent thee, all through the night." Her face turned to a peaceful smile while he sang to her. He finished, "I, my loving vigil keeping, all through the night." Her breath rose and fell evenly. "I love you." He rested his forehead against the top of her head and smiled as well, as he saw no parting from her in the future.

* * *

"Diaval, when is it you exactly plan on going back to work?" Maleficent questioned in a hoarse voice. She wriggled from the covers that cocooned them and reached for her cane. "You need vacation days for when you get sick, you know," she pointed out. He hadn't gone to work since he brought the mare home, and that was nearly a week ago.

He looked away from her. "I lost my job," he finally mumbled with a guilty look.

"What?" she thundered, though the crackle in her voice took off the intimidating edge. "When?"

"The day I got Aurora." He lowered his head. Soft enough so he thought she didn't hear, he muttered, "A fucking disappointment."

She sighed and touched his forearm. "That's not true and you know it." His black eyes were despondent. "Why didn't you tell me?" She needed to be gentle with him, careful with his fragile heart as he was with hers. She had no right to be angry; for whatever reason that he'd hidden it, he'd done it because he thought it was for the best, and he would never intentionally harm her.

He touched her cheek. "You were sick. You didn't need anything else to worry about, especially not about me."

"It's my job to worry about you. Sick or otherwise."

"And it's my job to bring in money so that we don't starve, but I clearly fail at that."

She sighed. "We're not going to starve, silly. You act like _I'm_ the dramatic one." She kissed his temple. He relaxed against her warmth ever so slightly. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." Diaval wasn't meant to be a waiter, she knew, but she also knew that he was popular amongst the patrons of the restaurant for which he once worked. She wondered how he had managed to lose his job. But she would not ask; if he wanted her to know, he would tell her. Otherwise, it would go unspoken. "But I fear my disability check alone can't support us long." It _could_, if they wanted it to; it had kept her and Nikita above water for years, as long as she mostly fed herself from the garden and limited electricity use.

He reached to rub her back. "I don't know what to do," he admitted quietly. "I've got—gods, I know it's pointless to say so…But I've got a novel half-written." He shrugged sheepishly. He knew a novel would get them nothing; it would be a waste of time, as his father's attempts at children's books and poetry always were.

She kissed his cheek. "It's not pointless. Don't say so." She chose to overlook the fact that she'd never even noticed him writing. "People make money off of books. You could be the next J. K. Rowling for all we know." Optimism was not in her nature, but he was in the dumps, and it was therefore her job to balance out the equation.

"I can't publish it."

"Why not?" Her eyebrows knitted together.

A slight, sad smile crept onto his face. "You said if I write a romance novel about us, you'd break up with me," he teased.

"Oh, shut up." She playfully slapped him on the shoulder. "I never envisioned a world where we ended up living together in our own house. Or where we didn't have some horrible break-up a few months in and never spoke to each other again, for that matter."

He kissed her chapped lips that were still warm with a slight fever. "I love you," he murmured. Their foreheads bumped. They smiled. "When I focus on loving you, everything else just falls into place." He bent his head and rested his forehead against her collarbones. She ruffled his hair gently. "Sometimes I think you must be a goddess."

She kissed the top of his head. "Shush. Flattery will get you nowhere." She combed through his hair with her fingernails, tenderly scraping his scalp with them. He was upset. They would manage. They would manage as long as they needed to do so. "Diaval, I do have one condition on this book you're writing."

He looked up at her with wide eyes. "What is it?"

"I want to read it."

He broke out in a wide smile and went to kiss her again. "Of course, my love. You will be the first to read my book."


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: This might be the last update until next weekend, unfortunately. All of my teachers seem to think that they're my only teacher, and they like to assign an hour or two of homework each every night. I'm totally overwhelmed and school just started on Thursday! But anyway, just a warning that updates won't be as frequently as you like. **

* * *

Their days became a tangle of housework and each other; they awoke in synchronicity in the morning, when Maleficent rose to cook breakfast and he wrote. Diaval wrote furiously in a third notebook, often neglecting his food until it was cold and she reminded him that he was the only reason she made it. He went out to feed his horse, who grew no friendlier toward him, and then he came back in to write some more. He wrote as if their lives depended on it, and she only encouraged him, even when the long spells of silence save for the scrabbling of a pen unnerved her. She, in turn, worked the garden until her back pain made her collapse, and more than once Diaval carried her inside and ran her a bath and ordered her to never work herself so hard again. Their money grew thinner by the week.

"What are you doing?" he asked her one morning when she was fidgeting about their closet. Writers' block was plaguing him, but he could not stop, for if he stopped, he would have to face reality once again.

Her brittle voice replied, "Selling some of these clothes that I never wear." She threw two beautiful dresses onto the bed that he had never seen her wear before.

He got up from their bed (it was the bed that was doing it to him, causing the writers' block; he knew better than to write in the same place he slept) and walked to her. "You don't have to do that," he pleaded. He touched her hand, the one that held her up with her cane. "Please, Millie, don't give up on me."

Emeralds scanned over his face before she whispered, "I won't give up on you, Diaval. I believe that you are writing something great. But we need money. Now." Her other hand drifted to his. "Normal people hold yard sales and put out the old. I'm not getting rid of anything that means much to either of us." She drew circles on the back of his hand with her thumb.

He bent his head in shame. "You shouldn't have to sacrifice anything for my folly. I'm sorry." What could he do, if he couldn't provide for her? What good was he? His eyes fell closed against the bitter thoughts. "A fucking disappointment." Hot tears stung his eyes, but he refused to shed them.

She kissed him. "Stop. Stop saying that, stop thinking it. I am a person who will make my own decisions, and I am choosing to sell my clothing that I bought on whimsy and have not worn since. I am sacrificing nothing. Now put your ass somewhere you can draw inspiration and keep writing."

When the days grew too long for Diaval to fill with writing alone and he felt the ache in his wrist from scribbling on paper, he took a break only to play with Aurora. He'd been unable to catch her since they'd put her in the pasture; though she would eat feed, she would not approach the food bowl until he was safely out of her way. Maleficent pretended not to watch while she tended the garden.

Then, one day, he walked out into the pasture with his notebook and pen in hand. He poured some grain into the bowl beside the salt block and walked away from it. He plopped down a few yards away and proceeded to write, paying the mare no heed. When he blinked up for only a minute to shake a cramp from his hand, he saw Maleficent staring just beyond him. With a slight turn of his head, he saw the small mare munching eagerly at the food, though her ears were swiveled back at him. A satisfied smile came onto his face. Maybe he wasn't so hopeless after all. He picked up the pen and continued to write.

From then on, he wrote out in the pasture. The mare never approached him, but she no longer fled his presence to the far corner of the fence. Maleficent kept gardening. He kept writing. They started to sell the produce that they didn't eat, and it brought in enough money for them to keep their heads above water.

There was a phone call. No one ever called them except Balthazar once in a blue moon. Her face became sullen as she answered it, and he recognized the look as the _"Why won't he just leave us alone"_ look. He kept writing, but listened to her clipped sentences as she addressed her cousin. There was a, "What?" and a, "It's not my problem," and a, "I don't care," and another, "What?" Then there was, in a more incredulous voice, "I never received any inheritance. I didn't even know Mom was gone until a year and a half ago." She lowered her voice. Diaval resisted the urge to crawl closer to her and listen in. There was a muttering, and then there was, "Even _he_ wouldn't sink that low." He heard no more except, "Whatever," and he went back to writing. She would tell him if it was important—which it certainly seemed so—and if it wasn't, she could keep it to herself.

He decided it was important when she left her hoe in the middle of the garden and stormed inside. He tucked his notebook under his arm and jogged after her, ignoring when Aurora bolted away from him in fear. "Millie! Millie, what's wrong?" He touched her elbow, and she stopped walking away from him. "Hey." He walked around her to face her, but he didn't ask what was wrong again, instead just wrapping her in a hug. "Are you okay?"

She was leaning heavier than usual on her cane. "I'm fine." He touched her back, and she stiffened. She was sore. So he settled his hands on her hips and earnestly scanned her face with worried black eyes. "We were robbed," she murmured to him.

"What?" He leaned forward slightly. He wanted to close the space between them. He wanted to hold her and wash away her pains.

Her eyes met his, and there was pain written in her face. "All of the money I won for my competitions, my mom put it in a fund for me." He waited for her to collect her thoughts. "She left it to me, but…" She shook her head. "My dad—I don't know, he kept it for himself. They found it shut up under the floorboards in his closet." She swallowed hard. "We're talking thousands of dollars that were put away for years; she saved it to send me to Meredith Manor. And he just kept it under his floorboards, waiting for a convenient time to use it." She shook her head incredulously. "Balthazar's sending it here. All of it, or at least everything they found."

He couldn't help himself. He kissed her. They were sweaty from the hours under the sun, but they embraced. "I love you." _What a lucky break. A fucking lucky break_. "You're rich." He kissed her again.

She pulled away. "No, _we're_ rich."

He whispered in her ear, "I have a secret to tell you." She raised an eyebrow. "I'm on the last chapter." She laughed breathlessly and went after his lips with hers.

"Finish that chapter, my love."

"Not when your back is hurting you. Some things are more important." He pulled at her gently. "Let me run you a bath." His nose bumped hers in a quiet Eskimo kiss. "I'll finish it after you're all comfy and warm." He let her lean on him, which she did reluctantly, and ran a warm bath for her. Then, he climbed in with her and washed her while he whispered sweet-nothings into her pointed ear. "I love you."

She shivered despite the warmth that he provided. "I love you." The feeling of his gentle hands helped her to relax. He rinsed her off and pulled her against him. She turned her head. "My handsome writer."

He kissed her cheek and slid the washcloth into her hand. "My beautiful gardener." He twirled a dark lock of hair around his finger.

"A cripple," she whispered.

"Never." He helped her wriggle around to face him and leaned into the soft feeling of the suds rolling over his scarred chest. The sweat rolled off of him, and he smelled like her lavender soap, and he felt at peace with himself finally. He helped her out of the tub when they were done and put her in their bed with orders not to move about, and she rolled her eyes but complied. He curled at her side with his notebook. "Here." He handed it to her. "I want you to write the last paragraph." Then, leaning close to her ear, he whispered words that made sense in no mind but his, and she put them upon the paper with elegant penmanship.

"Can I read it now?" she asked immediately.

He kissed her. "Yes. You can read it now." He went to fetch the rest of his notebooks, each labeled by number, and he pressed against her, letting his eyelashes brush her cheek when he blinked.

She ran her finger along the scars that covered his collarbones tenderly. Then, slowly, as if she were reading the most important book in her life (quite possibly it was), she lifted the cover, and her eyes traveled across the opening words, and she wriggled into a more comfortable position in his lap.

* * *

Her money came. Diaval began to search rampantly for a publisher, and he typed up his whole novel in only a few days. Days came and went. He spent more and more of his time out in the pasture with Aurora, and Maleficent was always watchful from her place in the garden. The mare no longer seemed frightened of him as much as she thought the cat-and-mouse they played was a mere game and not serious. And then, one day, he proudly attached a lead rope to the mare's halter. She strained against him, but what Maleficent failed to teach, he looked up on Google, and he knew not to look back at her but instead to keep trucking forward. Which was why he knew nothing strange was happening until there was a distant panicked cry of, "Diaval!" and he turned back to look.

He wasn't exactly sure what happened after that. The small mare was suddenly much taller than him as she lifted onto her back feet, and then there was a sharp pain through his head and back, and then there was blackness. "Diaval!" Maleficent bent beside him. "Diaval! Get up. Wake up."

"Millie…" he mumbled. He pawed at her clumsily and opened his eyes. There were three Maleficents cradling him. He instantly felt sick and rolled over to vomit. "Ugh." He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

She urgently pulled at him. "Can you stand?"

"Gimme a minute." Warmth was spreading down his neck. One sloppy hand felt back there, and he gagged again at the warm wetness that met him. "Oh god." He tried to sit up. "What the hell happened?"

"She hurt you, that's what happened." She supported his shoulders. The green of the grass brought out the green in her eyes. She hadn't been in the pasture since he brought the horse home. "It has to go. Tonight." Her hands were white clasping at him. "It won't stay here any longer." Her voice was ragged.

He blinked blearily away from her. The mare had returned to the far corner of the field and didn't graze, instead staring at them with fearful eyes. "No," he rebuked hoarsely.

"Yes." She was unfazed.

"No."

Her nails dug into his skin. "No, Diaval. It goes. Nothing will stay here if it poses a danger to you."

He shook his head. It made the world spin. He had nothing left to vomit up. "She didn't mean to hurt me. It was an accident." Her fingernails were hurting him. He tried to loosen them, to pry them away, but she wasn't paying any attention. "It was my fault. I scared her. She was trying to defend herself." Certainly Maleficent, his Millie of all people, would understand that. She understood horses. She knew more about them than he'd learned about everything else combined.

"I don't care. I want it gone." Unrelenting. She was scared for him, and when she was scared, she forgot everything else. "I don't care how scared that beast is. It won't hurt you again." She wiped the blood off of his neck with her sleeve. He needed to go to the hospital. He might need stitches. He probably had a concussion.

He licked his lips. "Give her another chance, Millie. This one was my fault."

"No, Diaval!" Her voice went up the octave. "No! It wasn't your fault, because you got hurt, and you didn't do anything wrong, and I should fucking _know_, okay?"

He glared at her. "You should know that it's never the horse's fault, and if a horse ever says no it's because I asked the question wrong or asked the wrong question!"

She looked as if he'd slapped her, and he instantly regretted his angry words, but he made no move to retract them. "I suppose you don't need my help, then." She stood. Angry tears glimmered in her eyes. "Go on, then! Go on and chase your ugly beast and let it kill you, for all I care! Go on and sleep with it out here with the mosquitoes! Keep it and cherish it until it bites you in the ass and cripples you just like me!" She turned around and slammed the gate closed.

He stared after her retreating form. Tears budded in his eyes, and he figured there was nothing wrong with crying if no one would see him. He ripped off his shirt and held it to his head and slowly, slowly, staggered to his feet. He'd learned another thing from the many things he'd read: never end on a negative note unless you were dying. He wasn't dying. He was dizzy and he thought he'd probably have to have Millie drive him to the hospital if he didn't stop bleeding soon, but he wasn't dying. Through his tears, he mumbled, "Come here, you stupid jughead. Come here, you little idiot." He crooned softly at the mare, and she looked ready to run, but soft glass eyes flickered over him. Tears fell from his eyes. "Good little ugly creature." Much to his surprise, she let him grab hold of the lead rope. She sniffed cautiously at him. "I thought so." Shaky hands took out a peppermint and offered it to her. She puffed loudly, but a whiskery muzzle still brushed across his palm to accept the treat. "Good girl."

He gave the lead rope a firm tug. She indignantly pulled against him. "No," he rebuked firmly, but not loudly. "Come." He tugged again. Giving in to the pressure, the mare lowered her head to his and took a small step after him. "Good." He led her to the fence line and tied her. "Stay." His anger was too much for him to manage more than a few short words and phrases. And he was angry, wasn't he? Not at her, not really. Angry at himself. But he didn't want to be angry at himself, so he blamed it on Maleficent instead. He said a hundred mean things about her in his head, and each one made him cry harder because she wasn't crippled and she wasn't broken and he loved her far more than was healthy. He began to groom the horse. The lightheaded dizziness didn't completely pass, but he didn't care. He couldn't go back in that house—_their_ house—where Maleficent would be, definitely hurt and probably crying. So he kept gently taking brushes over the mare's golden and white coat, and he combed out her wavy white mane and tail, and he fought with her over picking her hoofs until he just gave up because his head hurt and his back hurt and his insides ached with the thought that he'd hurt Maleficent. "You stupid jughead fool horse," he murmured. "She's going to make me get rid of you now, and do you care? I thought not." He slowly unclasped her halter and turned her loose, but she didn't flee. Instead, she sniffed around for another mint, which he provided. "I hate you." She snorted. "You ugly beast." Her ears flickered, and she ambled away from him toward a patch of green grass.

He walked inside on cat's feet. There were no lights on. He listened carefully for any signs of sound, and he heard none. She wasn't in their bedroom or the library or the multi-purpose room, and she wasn't cooking dinner or watching TV, and their vehicles were both home. Resigning himself, he cracked open the door to the extra room that had never been slept in. She lay there, on the bed that they had once appointed to be used as a punishment. "Millie?" he whispered, scared of breaking the silence. He approached and dropped to his knees next to the tiny bed. One of his notebooks was cradled to her chest, opened to a page. He could read in his own writing words that he had said long ago. _"I don't say I love you because I want to hear it back, Millie. I say it because I want to make sure you know."_ He swallowed hard and leaned to kiss her cheek. "I'm sorry." Gentle hands caressed her face. They wiped away the tear tracks. "Maleficent, I'm sorry. I love you."

Her eyes were open, blinking, but her back was to him. He pushed her over and crawled into the small bed beside her. "We'll get rid of her if you want to. We'll do whatever you want to do." A soft kiss planted itself on her bare neck. "Please, I'm sorry. I was stupid. I was angry, and you did nothing to deserve my anger." He traced one severe cheekbone. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she let out a shaky breath. "Talk to me. C'mon, tell me something."

Soft, almost inaudible, her thin voice croaked, "Nikita's old saddle and bridle are in the storage hatch of the trailer with leather polish."

His eyebrows knitted together, befuddled. "What?" he whispered incredulously.

"If you're going to let that thing kill you, you might as well have fun doing it," she mumbled. She slowly turned to face him and offered a watery smile. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those mean things." He pulled her close to him. "I was scared, but that's no excuse."

He trailed his thumb over her cheek. "I knew better," he murmured. "I love you."

Their noses touched. "I love you."

He raised one thick eyebrow. "I can't ride a horse without a damn good teacher, you know."

Her eyes flickered away. "I can't." He twirled dark hair around his finger and brought it under his nose so he could smell it. "I can't." She shook her head. "I can't even get close to the fence without panicking, Diaval."

"You seemed to do okay today," he pointed out.

"Today I was worried she'd caved in your skull," she replied drily. His eyes implored her quietly, and she felt them tugging on her, and she knew she was getting guilt-tripped for being so hurt over a little spat. Dammit, if he was going to learn how to ride a horse, he certainly wasn't going to hire someone and bring them to their house. He would have no one else. "Do you really want me to?" she asked weakly.

He gave her a sweet kiss. "I don't want you to do anything you're uncomfortable with."

She touched the scar by his eye. "Okay," she agreed.

"You'll do it?" His eyes widened. He hadn't expected her to actually agree to teach him. Granted, he'd ridden horses before, but he'd never had official lessons or instruction of any sort, really.

"I'd do anything for you," she replied quietly. He buried his face in her hair, and they were content.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: This chapter was shorter than I wanted it to be, but I wanted to give you guys another update just in case I don't get the chance to do another one until Friday or Saturday. The next chapter is quite a bit longer (I think it might be the longest chapter in the whole work, but I haven't looked at the word count yet). Also, guys! I want this story to make it to one hundred reviews ****_really_**** bad! Because it is ****_super_**** close! So give me a hand?**

* * *

She couldn't believe she'd agreed to do such a thing. The mare was twitchy and nervous while Diaval struggled to figure out how to exactly secure the saddle on her back; Maleficent blatantly refused to come through the fence and touch the beast that she refused to call by name. "That strap—no, not that one, the other one—that's the cinch strap. You put it through the girth. The girth, the big one that's on the other side. Wrap it through. That's actually backwards, but the purpose is the same. Pull it as tight as you can."

"Won't I hurt her?" he protested feebly. Aurora was being surprisingly complacent. At least, she hadn't bitten him yet and had only pinned her ears when he didn't let her smell the saddle first, which Maleficent ordered him to do.

"No," she refuted. He didn't look convinced, but he did as he was told. The mare grunted and flicked her tail. "Put on her bridle." He immediately went to take off the halter. "Not like that!" He froze. "Put the halter around her neck, so she can't get away, before you put the bridle on."

"Like this?"

"Sort of." Her fingers itched for a demonstration, but she didn't dare come any nearer to the beast. "The bit goes in her mouth—the whole thing's upside down—the thicker part of the noseband should be in font, not under her chin." She shook her head, amazed at how badly he'd managed to make it fit. "That's completely wrong. Take it off and try again."

He complied, mumbling, "I rode western when I was a kid. This is new."

"I should say so. The dangly piece is the throat latch; you have to hook it under her chin. Not that tight!" Aurora gave a patient sigh and planted her front foot on top of Diaval's. He jumped back, swearing, and the mare and the woman rolled their eyes in synchronization. "Now unhook that halter. Preferably without strangling her." He obeyed while still trying to rub the feeling back into his foot.

Maleficent was silent for a long moment, and he finally asked, "Now what?"

"Lengthen the stirrups and get on." Her voice was strangely flat. She was trying to protect herself. He pushed away the nervousness that burbled in his chest and gathered the reins in his hand. Then he put his foot in the stirrup—thank god she was short—and swung on agilely. He looked down at Maleficent, whose face he could finally see clearly over the fence. She was white as a ghost. Her face was drawn as if against pain, and it was against pain; she was fighting her demons for him.

He licked his lips and tried to adjust his seat. Aurora shifted back and forth beneath him with flickering ears and uncertainty in her wavering step. It was clear she had been ridden before, but not in a long time. He fumbled with the reins and fought the urge to deem the whole plan a bad idea and get off immediately. "Okay, now what?" he asked, pulling Maleficent from her detrimental thoughts.

"Squeeze with your calves and pull the direction you want to go." He applied the slightest of pressures with his legs, and she bounded forward with several great leaps. His knees clamped over her shoulders and his hands fisted in her mane. Distantly, he could hear, "Get her head up! Get her head up!" and he grappled at the reins. "Pull her in a circle!"

_Pull, pull, pull_. He tugged and released until she was swiveling in a circle and chomping at the bit with her ears laid back. He pulled her around until he was dizzy, when he finally let her relax and let out a deep breath. "That was scary," he commented, not daring to loosen the reins. Aurora was breathing hard beneath him. He was tempted to say that was enough for one day and get off and forget it ever happened, but he knew he was never supposed to end on a negative note with a horse. So he gently pressed his calves into her again, and this time she obeyed. He turned her back to Maleficent and let her walk, still not daring to give her more of the reins that she pulled for. Maleficent's eyes were closed, and she was splitting her weight between the fence and her cane. "Millie?" he whispered. She looked even more terrified than before. "I'm okay. Really. No broken bones. Didn't even bust my head open." He reached one tentative hand to toy with Aurora's white mane.

She nodded and opened her eyes. They were brimmed with unshed tears. He swallowed hard and waited for an order. "Go on, then. Make her go." She nodded to him again and licked her lips. He sucked in a deep breath. He was no coward. He was scarcely four and a half feet off the ground; how bad would it really hurt if she threw him off? It was with this thought that he nurtured his ego and urged her onward. After a few more minutes, Maleficent began to bark orders at him, and he felt himself begin to smile. He wasn't scaring her too badly. "Heels down, toes up. Toes out! Not that far. Sit on your seat bones."

"My _what?_" Diaval didn't think he had any bones called seat bones.

"They're…" She let out a puff of breath and struggled to think of a way to explain them. "The bones you feel when you relax your legs. Yes, like that. Keep your shoulders relaxed and your back straight. That's good." Aurora seemed to relax more as he did, and she asked for a bit more rein with a few pulls, and he gave it to her. She extended her neck. "Imagine a string dangling from your earlobe down to your heels, and get so that your shoulders and hips are in alignment. But keep your heels down!" He pushed his heels down further into the stirrups and tried to focus on them the most; he knew how important it was to her that he kept them down. "Now you're looking good." She nodded in what he considered approval.

After barking a few more orders at him, Maleficent fell silent and only watched while he directed the mare where he wanted to go. "Good girl," he praised when she followed his orders. He shifted his weight ever so slightly in the directions he wished to go, and the horse was astute in reading his body language. "Is that good enough for one day, teacher?" he called across the fence.

"I should think so." With a satisfied smile, he went to dismount. "Wait! Get off on the right side."

He froze. "Why?"

"It keeps them from getting lopsided."

"A lopsided horse?"

"Just do it." He shrugged and complied. "Thank you."

He hooked Aurora back up by the halter and took off her bridle (Nikita's name was on the brow band, though). Then, he stripped her of her saddle and went to brush her again. "Do you want to help me groom her?" he asked delicately.

"_No_," Maleficent shot back firmly. He gave her a soft smile and said nothing in reply. They had time. They had all the time they needed.

* * *

They were curled on the couch after dinner with Maleficent's eyes lazily falling closed to the movie they were watching. "You know, in the book, they actually… Never mind." Diaval stroked her hair, still damp from their bath which was shared more often than not if only for water conservation. He pushed a lock behind her ear and kissed the birthmark on her brow. "I love you," he murmured.

She snuggled her face into the crook of his scarred neck. "You, too." Her voice was sleepy. "Did that publishing lady get back with you?" Her eyelashes gently brushed his skin. He liked the tingles they brought forth.

"She did," he replied. "She wants to come meet with us next weekend."

"Us?" she queried.

"I might've told a little fib about you writing half of it so I didn't have to face her alone. Moral support, you know? Because if she turns out to be like that Roseanne woman, I am not handling her by myself."

She gave the slightest of tired smiles. "If she turns out to be like that Roseanne woman, I'll knock her unconscious with my cane and you can find another publisher." He trailed a line of hot kisses down her neck. She smiled wider. "Diaval…" Her voice was nearing a whine. "I'm tired…"

He pressed his lips to her forehead. "Okay. I'll let you take a nap right here." He pulled her head to his chest. "I love you." He twirled a string of hair around his finger. "So beautiful," he whispered, almost as an afterthought, while he fiddled with her dark locks.

Just as he felt peace was about to befall them, Maleficent's cellphone rang. She reluctantly pulled herself away from Diaval and lazily strained toward it, definitely expelling more effort by stretching than she would have if she'd just stood and gotten it. She quickly handed it to Diaval. "I don't feel like talking to him right this second." Balthazar. He reluctantly took the phone from her hand, grumbling about the well-intentioned but still annoying man that was_ her _cousin, not _his_.

"Hello?" he greeted. A small smile crawled back onto her face. He couldn't help but smile back. She was so beautiful. So beautiful he often wondered how she thought otherwise. "Balthazar?"

"Diaval, I need to talk to Mal." His voice was uncomfortable, like walking on eggshells but trying not to break them. He didn't sound like he was prepared to deliver whatever news he was calling to deliver.

He hit speaker. "You've got both of us," he reported.

"Um, privately?" So he didn't want Diaval to be a part of whatever it was he planned on telling.

Diaval shrugged and went to hand her the phone—she would just tell him whatever it was afterward, after all, so there was no reason to get his knickers in a twist—but she interjected, "You can tell both of us or neither of us." Her voice was icy, and her emerald eyes were livid at the suggestion that some piece of information might go through one of them but not through the other.

He touched her forearm. "It's fine," he soothed, "I don't mind."

"It's not fine, and I mind," she shot back.

He shrugged again and turned his attention back to the phone. Balthazar began to speak, clearly perturbed by the fact that he couldn't speak to his cousin privately. "Well, the, um, the mass auction we held was last week, you know?"

"We don't want any money," Diaval began, but the man on the other end of the line cut him off.

"No, no, it's not about money, there's a check heading your way in the mail. It's about the horses."

Maleficent blanched. She had a horse too many in her backyard. "Were they not all sold?"

"Yes, yes, of course, excellent bloodlines, they sold easily." He cleared his throat. "Twenty of the horses—the ones still left from Silver's line, actually—were sold to um, well. I didn't know this until today when I was reviewing the paperwork and I saw his name, but I sold twenty of our—_your_—horses to one Stefan Kingsmith." His voice was harried and rushed while he kept forcing the words from his lips. "I didn't know it was him when I saw him—all yellowed fingers and teeth, ugly beard, breathing problems from cigarettes, he looks like he aged thrity years in just these few—and I don't—I mean, what should I do?" What should he do? Diaval thought he should probably pay closer attention to the life going on around him. But it was not for him to say. He looked at Maleficent, who was even paler than before.

He pressed his lips to one severe cheekbone. And he waited. He waited for her decision. A frosty voice answered, "It is none of our concern who purchased them."

"It's suspected they're prospects for his son. Um, Philip, I think his name was, five year old chap—"

She hung up. Balthazar's voice died away. She was shaking. Diaval tried to grab her, but she snatched away as if he'd burned her. He froze. He couldn't remember the last time she'd denied him touch, but it had been long ago, and it scared him. "Millie?" he whispered.

She clambered to her feet. White face, cold hands, angry eyes that wouldn't shed the tears she wanted to. "Don't, don't—just, no." It wasn't his fault. He'd had nothing to do with it. He was trying to help her. He was there for her. She put a vice grip on her cane and turned to walk away. She couldn't think with him staring at her. She couldn't push it away and ignore it with his concerned eyes begging her to speak. His eyes wanted her to speak so that he could listen, even when all she wanted to do was convince herself that it didn't matter and didn't concern her. She tried to walk away from him.

He followed her. He didn't touch her, but he kept his hands close to her. He didn't speak for a long moment when she hesitated half-way down the hallway, unsure where she wanted to go, how she could escape. "What are we going to do?" he asked.

What were they going to do? They were going to forget that Balthazar had ever told them anything about who purchased the horses, and they were going to move on with their lives. They were going to publish his book. They were going to be careful with their money so they had enough to keep themselves and their animals fed. They certainly weren't going to concern themselves about whether or not that bastard that had broken her back was mistreating animals that she didn't care about anyway. Or so she tried to convince herself. "Nothing," she snipped. "Not our problem."

His mouth hung slightly ajar for just a moment before he managed to spurt, "You don't really believe that, do you?"

She turned to face him. Her eyes were as cold, as hateful, as angry as the day he'd met her. It was an expression he thought she'd long lost, and it struck him painfully in the gut. "Of course I believe it. The horses were not ours in the first place, and as long as they are gone they are no longer a problem, regardless of their new owner."

She was hurting bad enough to push him away, to hold a façade up to him. He thought she'd trusted him. He didn't truly doubt that she did, but some things struck so low and so hard that the pain couldn't be thought through. So he reached for her. He grabbed her elbow, and he saw it written across her face. Fear—panic, even—at his touch. She snatched away, but not before one leg bumped her cane and made her trip. Touching her wasn't an option. He drew into himself and took a few steps away from her. "Millie." He hoped his voice would calm her, but he wasn't sure, and he was worried that it wouldn't, that somehow in that one phone call he'd lost her forever. "Don't—duh-don't freak out. It's just me." It was just him. He offered one hand toward her.

Her arms crossed over her chest. She closed her eyes against bitter memories. Her lips trembled along with her fingers. Violently, she shook her head and whirled around again. She stormed into the mockingly named punishment room and slammed the door. He could hear heavy breaths and the chink of a lock. Even so, he tried the door handle. "Millie!" he called with a note of desperation. "Millie! Please, come out. Let's talk about this!" She had too many scars to feel comfortable talking about it, but it seemed like the best possible alternative compared to others, such as letting Stefan Kingsmith have twenty horses that they didn't know were in safe hands. "Maleficent! Don't shut me out, Maleficent." He rested his forehead against the door. "Come on, my love. Let me in." Her only answers were the shaking, sobbing breaths. "Alright. I'll wait." He sank down with his back against the door. "I'll stay right out here. Just say so if you need something, 'kay? I'll stay right here."

A brief moment of silence passed between him. He listened to the creak of bedsprings. "Don't punish yourself, love. Don't get in that bed by yourself and think about what a horrible person you are and how many mistakes you've made, because that little voice in your head speaks no truth." His own hot tears began to leap to his eyes. He couldn't lose her. He'd lost so damn much already; he couldn't lose her. "You are beautiful," he reminded her. "You're the love of my life." The love of his life, the most important thing in it. "You're the unattainable stars high in the night sky, and I happened to be lucky enough to jump up and grab one." Not just the stars, she was the sun and the moon and the Milky Way and all the galaxies he knew existed. "You're the one I never want to be without. Ever." He couldn't imagine spending more than a few hours without her.

Diaval pushed his hand under the door. "Maleficent, I love you, forever and always, till the day I die and even after that. I love you." He lowered his voice to a near-whisper as the fears leapt up and bit at him and pulled at his clothing like rabid dogs. "Please don't leave me."

The bedsprings creaked again. He could hear her breathing from behind the door and wondered if she was going to open it. She didn't. He listened at the sound of her sliding down the door. Her hand came on top of his where it protruded from under the door. She was cold to the touch. "Never," she whispered. Her voice cracked, raw and emotional.

Diaval let out a sigh of relief. She wouldn't leave him. She would stay. She was afraid, maybe, but not for long. She still loved him. "I love you, Maleficent," he murmured. The door was hurting his hand, but he couldn't have cared less. Her single word was enough to make him endure pain for a lifetime.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: What with school and some new plot bunnies, I'm going to try to finish this story within the next month (may be more, depending on my homework load). This is most likely going to be the longest chapter in the story. **

* * *

He supposed it got late and he fell asleep, because when he awoke, a soft, warm Maleficent was resting against him, and Pebbles was between his legs, and a blanket was tossed across them. He pulled his arm from the tangle of the blankets to look at his watch. Two AM. So it was late—early, rather—and they should both be asleep. But Maleficent peered up at him with green eyes. She wasn't asleep. He should've known she wasn't asleep. Merely waiting for him to leave the state of unconsciousness so she could likely apologize for being temperamental again. He gave her a small smile. "Hey." He tried his voice. It was hoarse. He wondered if she could tell that he'd shed a few tears. Maybe. Maybe not. He didn't really care.

She closed her eyes and turned her face away from him. Ashamed. She was ashamed. He put a finger under her chin and pulled her face back toward him. "Hey," he repeated. "It's okay. I love you." She hungrily kissed him. His head bumped against the wall. His arms reached for her and closed around her. "I love you. I love you." He repeated it as if his life depended on it. "I love you."

She remained silent. He thought she might have fallen asleep, but then a ragged voice finally whispered, "You're not harassing me to go save twenty innocent lives yet."

He gave her a soft smile. "I was under the impression that such a thing would get me kicked onto the porch for the night." He leaned forward to kiss the tip of her nose. "Do you _want_ to go save twenty innocent lives?"

She looked away. "I do not."

"Then we won't." Her eyes wandered back to him, surprised. "You're right. It's none of our business. And while I might say that ignoring it is not necessarily the right thing to do, it is certainly the most rational." A warm palm cupped her cheek. "Let's go to bed, okay?" Gentle arms wrapped around her and lifted her off the ground. "I love you."

"Wait, my cane," she protested weakly.

"I'll get it when we get up," he promised. He lowered her onto the covers. "Go to sleep, my love."

She snuggled closer to him and thought of how she didn't deserve him, how she'd done nothing to earn his devotion, and she wondered how much longer it would be before he gave up on her completely. Then she shoved those thoughts away. Diaval was not like that. She didn't deserve him, but that didn't mean he would leave. "I love you," she murmured into his chest.

"I love you."

When she awoke, she was on his side of the bed. Her cane was on the floor. But he wasn't beside her. Immediately, her heart leapt into her throat. _Calm down, silly. He's probably feeding that beast. _Inhaling deeply, she noted the smell of breakfast. _Or feeding me._ A small smile crept onto her face at that thought. She grabbed her cane and headed down the hall without caring to brush her hair or put on suitable clothes. "Diaval?" she called. Her brow wrinkled in befuddlement at a note beside a thermos on the kitchen table. _Good morning, Millie. There's a plate with scrambled eggs and toast and bacon in the microwave. The thermos has hot chocolate, mind you, not coffee. I'll be back soon. I love you_.

Her stomach turned. He was gone with no hint of to where, and he left nothing but a cryptic note and a plate of food. She wasn't hungry. Where had he gone? When would he be back? _Soon_ wasn't a good answer. Was he okay? Why hadn't he taken her? That bothered her the most. Why hadn't he taken her along with him? She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down, but the unnerving sensation of abandonment wouldn't leave her alone. She tried to eat her eggs and toast, and she let Pebbles have the bacon. "Where did your daddy go, Pebbles?" she whispered. The cat purred in contentment at the bacon. The woman reached to stroke her, and the purr quickly morphed into a hiss of discontentment. "Sorry, sorry." She snatched her hand away from the claws. "I don't want your bacon." She rose and got her phone, and she dialed Diaval's number, but the phone was turned off. "Diaval, where the hell are you?"

* * *

He forced himself to keep from looking at his phone while he drove down the road, and he cursed himself for being too big of a coward to tell her where he was going, and he wondered just how angry she would be for doing this. God, she would be angry. The last time he'd taken off without a trace, he'd come home dragging a godforsaken horse. This time…well, at least this time he hoped the surprise would be pleasant. That was, of course, assuming he didn't get put in jail for this act of drudgery that he was about to commit.

When he figured he was about fifteen minutes away from the Kingsmith residence, he pulled into a parking lot and flipped down the mirror to look at his reflection. The bastard had only seen him once; would he be recognizable? Of course he would. Scars like his didn't just fade from a person's memory. So he took out the make-up that he'd swiped from Maleficent's kit and began to dab it around his eyes. Those were easily hidden. The ones on his neck weren't so easy to conceal, and no matter how much foundation he smeared across them, they couldn't be completely smoothed over. "Shit," he mumbled. He zipped up his jacket all the way. The collar was high and covered most of them. Then, he fumbled for his sunglasses. He peered at his reflection again. He didn't look much like himself, he had to admit, but a darker version of himself. _If I was a homicide detective, this is what'd I'd look like_, he decided, and that thought made him smile.

He reached to check his phone. He knew he needed to call her, if only to keep her from filing a missing person's report. She picked up on the first ring. "Diaval? Diaval, where the hell are you?" Her voice was breathless, almost panicked. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," he soothed. "Did you eat your breakfast?"

"Where are you?" she demanded again. "Your publisher is supposed to be here tomorrow! Where are you?"

He blanched. He'd forgotten about the publisher. "I'll tell you when I get home, and I'll be home by tonight, I swear. But I really must know that you filled your belly—"

"Diaval Ravenscroft, you tell me where you are right now or by god I will not let you sleep in our bed for the rest of the week! Where are you?"

He swallowed hard. He didn't think she meant well on her promise, but was it worth taking the chance? Considering the circumstances…probably. "Millie, calm down. I'm not going anywhere in particular." God, he was such a bad fucking liar. For a writer of fiction (and his book, though inspired by the truth, was fiction), he couldn't tell a lie to save his life.

She was deathly silent for a moment. "You're going to his house, aren't you." It wasn't a question. She knew. It wasn't a question because she knew that he was going to Stefan Kingsmith's house with the intention of ensuring the safety of those horses, and maybe with the hope of exacting his own bit of revenge. Her voice rose in pitch and volume. "You're going to his fucking house!"

"Calm down," he repeated. "I'm going to be alright. I'm not doing anything stupid."

"Not doing anything stupid? By god, _this_ is the stupidest thing you've ever done!" Her voice crackled with anger and tension and bitterness. "What do you intend to do? March onto his property with pitchforks and fire and declare that he needs to give back what's rightfully yours?" She was going shrill.

He sighed. "No. He's not even going to know who I am if I can help it." She didn't say anything. He could almost hear her shaking her head at him. "I couldn't just not know. I couldn't just know that I'd turned them over to somebody who may or may not hurt them and not make sure that they're safe."

"And you didn't even think to ask me about it? That maybe I'd spent several years of my life with him and might know a little bit about how he treats his animals?" She'd never spoken of Stefan so freely to him before.

Taken aback, he replied, "I had assumed it was out of the question. I'm sorry for doing so." He never would have imagined that she would have been open to speaking to him about Kingsmith, even if the discussion didn't involve what he'd done to her. It was a sore spot on her body, a line in her memoir that she wanted to scribble out and forget. He understood; it was the same as his fear of dogs, and just as understandable and just as reasonable. "But I'm like ten minutes away from his place now. There's no point to going back."

Her voice softened to a lullaby of weariness, nearly begging him. "Please just come home. He wouldn't have hurt them. His horses are his life work, and they're where he makes his money. You wouldn't just rip out pages of your book and throw it away, would you?"

"Of course not."

"It's the same for him. He'd never harm a horse that he owned. They will be well cared for."

He didn't dare say what he thought—that she'd been wrong about him before, and she could be wrong now. He wouldn't say that because it would hurt her too badly, and this whole escapade was already hurting her. But he didn't trust her word alone, not where Kingsmith was concerned. "I'm practically already there. I promise, I'll be fine. Really." He pulled back onto the road and started toward the thin, winding road that would lead to Kingsmith Farms. His blood was nearing boiling temperature already, and he hadn't even laid eyes on the bastard yet.

She sighed. He could feel her inner frustrations and fears poured into that sigh, and he almost turned around immediately. Guiltily, he kept driving straight. He wouldn't do anything like this ever again, he promised himself. She didn't deserve to be snatched around and abused by his need to play the hero. "Just be safe," she whispered. "I love you."

"I love you, too." He listened to her breathing for a few moments more before the line clicked off, and he lowered his phone from his ear, feeling a bit more despondent than before. He pulled in front of a gate with a large plaque of a horse and a sign beneath it that signified he had found the right place. He got out of the car. Beyond the pine trees, he could see the hints of a manor in the distance. The place was grand. This family had clearly been wealthy long before Stefan was born; they could have been royalty. He shook his head rapidly and searched for a button to press to let them know someone was waiting to be let in. He found it on one of the pillars and pressed it.

Not five minutes later, a boy astride a tall, black stallion came galloping toward him. Diaval swallowed hard and took a step back, and he turned his head to the side, certain he was about to witness the kid get impaled upon one of the trees. "Hello, sir!" He dared to look back to the child, all round cheeks and brown hair that was squashed under a helmet that looked too big for his head.

The boy had a large, crooked nose and tiny greenish gray eyes. "Hello," Diaval greeted, adjusting his sunglasses. "Are you Philip Kingsmith?"

"I am. Are you looking for my daddy?"

"I am."

He didn't have to wait much longer for Stefan to make his appearance. "Philip!" The man charged up after him. Every few steps, he paused to cough and hack. Balthazar was right; his beard was thick and tangled, his skin yellowed and wrinkled, his teeth cracked and crooked. "I told you not to leave the arena!" He grabbed hold of the boy's calf and snatched it hard enough for the kid to wince in an attempt to fix his posture. "The stirrups are too low. Those imbeciles." He promptly began to make adjustments to the saddle, but he had yet to acknowledge Diaval's presence. "What have I told you about keeping your heels down?"

The boy nearly rolled his eyes. "The greatest eventing horse that ever existed died because his rider didn't keep her heels down, and we're lucky to have received some of his offspring." He looked frustrated.

Diaval's blood ran cold, and he tried to keep from clenching his fists. _I am not Diaval Ravenscroft. I am not Diaval Ravenscroft_. "Would that be a reference to the late Sterling Silver?" He tried to keep his voice nonchalant. It worked, he thought, if not well.

Stefan's gaze fell on him. "Philip, go back to the arena. You're supposed to be having a lesson, not galloping to and fro as you please." The boy obediently wheeled his horse around, and they trotted back in the direction they came from. Piercing green eyes turned back to Diaval. "Who are you, and why are you here?"

Diaval shrugged. "I'm David Johnson. Owner of an eventing farm up in Montana."

"You've come quite a way to get here."

"I have. I was merely interested in the whereabouts of Sterling Silver's offspring." He tilted his head to the left just a bit. "His mother was born on my place. A good mare. I need to make sure they're well cared for, you understand. She was the last of that line. You've got some precious gems on your hands." It sounded bad even to his ears.

His eyes didn't trust the dark-haired man before him. "I can assure you that they're in good hands."

"I really would like to make sure." Diaval eased his face into an easygoing smile.

Those piercing green eyes flickered left and right before the man opened the gate. "Come in. This will take a few minutes."

Oh, Diaval was playing with fire. "Do you know what happened with Sterling Silver exactly, Mr. Kingsmith? All of the media seems to disagree about the apparent sabotage surrounding the case." His tone was laidback and leisurely. Gods, he was juggling the flames, walking across hot coals with rubber soles and praying they didn't melt too soon. "Weren't you incriminated on account of the rider's injury?" Despite his nonchalant tone, his eyes were hot with anger.

Stefan went stiffer than he already was, and tension peeled off of his body. "I was cleared of all charges," he stated immediately. Sensing the analyzing eyes on him, he shifted awkwardly and kept his eyes away from Diaval's. "Sterling Silver was a great horse. One of the best. It was unfortunate that someone could have sunk as low as sabotage in order to give themselves a better shot at winning. But the severity of the accident could've been prevented if the rider had had proper instruction."

"I dare say she couldn't have made it to the Olympic qualifying rounds if she didn't have proper instruction," Diaval replied, using just a hint of dryness in his tone to keep from showing his inner fury that the man dared to blame any of it on Maleficent.

"And I dare to counter that she made it that far on luck and a damn good horse. If she was too stupid to keep her damn heels down, she had it coming." He shrugged, as if it meant nothing to him, but his tone of voice displayed his inner turmoil.

Diaval had to clench his fists and grind his teeth to keep from knocking the man unconscious. "I suppose we can agree to disagree, then." He strolled alongside his enemy through the forest until they came out at a barn. "This is where they are housed?" he questioned with one thick, black eyebrow.

Stefan nodded curtly. "Seventeen mares and three studs. Go on, then. Convince yourself that they're safe and stop wasting my time." He gesticulated ahead. "I hope you haven't intended on buying them, because they're not for sale and will not be during my lifetime."

"I have no intention of making any purchases," Diaval soothed. He walked into the musty old barn with dust. A cat hissed and shot past him after a mouse, but he ignored it and looked left and right at the horses. They were almost all gray or white like Nikita, all much larger than Aurora. All were healthy-sized, lanky with no ribs showing and glowing, shiny coats. His fears were completely unfounded. Maleficent was right; the creatures were certainly adored, as evidenced by the way Stefan was—ick—_cooing_ at one of the mares. _I don't know, Millie, but I think your ex might be romantically involved with one of his horses_. He cringed.

"Pretty little thing, aren't you? Yes, a pretty little thing. Nobody's gonna be mean to you here, I promise." The mare was most certainly not little, and Diaval didn't think she was all that pretty, either, but to each his own. "My pretty little Tiara, huh, pretty little creature."

Oh, he was going to throw up. He swallowed back the bile in his throat. "I should be going now. I have someone waiting on me back at home."

Those piercing green eyes looked to his, and Stefan tilted his head to the right, peering at Diaval through narrowed slits. "You give your girlfriend my regards, _Mr. Johnson_." The words were venomous. He slid away from the mare and neared Diaval with clenched fists. "Or perhaps you'd like to tell me your real name, since I didn't catch it that last time I spoke to dear old Mal." A wicked smirk curled onto his lips. "Did she send you here to spy, huh? Send you here to make sure the problem she didn't want was being cared for? Typical. Passing her responsibilities on to others. Using crippled as an excuse—" He didn't get to finish that sentence.

Diaval's fist connected with his nose. The man stumbled back, clutching at his beak that spurted red blood. "Maleficent is_ not_ crippled." Anger crackled in his voice. "And how dare you blame your transgressions on her as if you had nothing to do with her injuries! _You're_ the one that can't own up to your responsibilities!" He slung another punch, but Stefan ducked and countered quickly with a fist in his gut.

He doubled over and gasped for breath. He'd never hit anything except a pig, and pigs generally didn't hit back. "You pathetic excuse for a man!" The second fist came quickly, but Diaval moved quicker. "Charmed by her insolent ways!" The third punch also missed, but he was getting slower, and he didn't have enough time to gather his bearings and strike back. He'd been played with fire, and now he was getting burnt. The fourth hand didn't hit him, but slammed him backward by the throat. "Do you let her rake her claws all over you? Do you submit to the ferocity of her inner animal?" Dirty, broken fingernails dug into his skin. "Have you kissed her inner thighs while she begged and writhed beneath you only to find yourself completely out of your league?" His vision was starting to double and go hazy. "Because I have."

A knee shot upward, and it was Stefan's turn to double over while he grasped at his groin. Diaval socked him in the jaw, and when he decided that wasn't enough, he kicked him in the ribs. Again. And again. And again. "Don't you ever talk about her that way!" Stefan was moaning. "Ever! Ever! You have no right!" His trembling hands were starting to realize that he had done something inherently wrong, and his limbs stopped churning after his enemy's blood. "You will never come near Maleficent again, or I will _kill_ you." Bloody, bruised knuckles began to ache. "And you ever dare to call her crippled again, you'll learn what _crippled_ is really like when the nursing home feeds you your meals through a straw." He whirled around. It wasn't safe to stay there any longer. Stefan would recover eventually, and he might want to press charges, and Diaval was getting the hell out of dodge.

He ran. He ran back to his car, and he snatched the wheel onto the road. Fear and disgust at himself burbled in his gut, and he pulled over to vomit. He cried ashamed tears of pain and anger. Anger, not at Stefan, but at himself. Words kept echoing back at him. _Because I have. Because I have. Have you kissed her inner thighs while she begged and writhed beneath you only to find yourself completely out of your league? Because I have. _He couldn't get his mind to stop turning and turning and thinking and considering and analyzing. It was part of Kingsmith's game, he knew. The manipulative bastard was even still trying to cause his Millie any pain he could, and if that meant hurting Diaval, it was what he would do. But it unsettled him. He couldn't drive. He pulled off into the parking lot of a gas station and scrubbed the scar-concealing make-up off of his face, and he grabbed his phone.

"Diaval? What happened? Are you okay?" Her questions spilled from her tongue, all hurried and concerned, and he took a deep breath. It didn't matter what Kingsmith had said. Maleficent loved him. She loved him freely. He felt the weight in his pocket of the surprise he held in store for her. He loved her more than anything else in the world. "Diaval, answer me!"

He took another deep breath and swallowed hard. "I'm fine. I'm—I'm fine."

"Are you _crying?_"

"I was. I'm not now."

"What happened?"

"Nothing, nothing," he tried to soothe. "He just had a better aim than I thought, really. And I'm pretty sure I broke his nose, so tit for tat."

She was silent for a long moment. "You said you wouldn't do anything stupid," she finally whispered.

"I'm not dead and nothing's broken, so I didn't do anything stupid." He softened his voice. "I'm fine, Millie, I promise. Just some bruised knuckles and wounded ego, I swear." Admiring his reflection in the car mirror, he decided she could wait to hear about the bruises around his neck where Kingsmith had tried to choke him. "It was just shocking. I've never actually had a fight before, so it was a little scary," he admitted. "I love you."

There was a shaky breath from the other end of the line. "I love you, Diaval."

"Don't you start crying now," he teased. "That's my job. I'm the one that just tried and failed to beat the shit out of him."

She wasn't crying, but her trembling breaths told her fear. "Just get home soon. I want to see you and make sure you're not in pieces." Her voice was music to his ears, enough to calm the rage that had so freely consumed him when he looked upon one Stefan Kingsmith. "I love you," she said again.

Feeling his blood calm in his veins, he pulled back onto the road. "I love you, too. I've got a surprise for you when I get home." He knew by now that the word surprise was enough to make her gut pool with dread. "It's nothing alive, and it's pretty small, and I think you'll like it, okay?" A weight in his pocket. He reached in to fiddle with it while he drove. "And I don't think it's that big of a surprise, anyway. It's nothing we haven't talked about before." Though upon mention, they tended to fall silent and skirt around it like the elephant in the room. It was the one line they hadn't yet crossed in their utter adoration of each other. But he was prepared to step across it. "I'm heading straight home. No stops. Should be there in a few hours, okay? Don't fret about me. I love you." He didn't care that it was the third time he'd said that, because he could never say it enough. Not to her. His love for her was unending, and he wanted to make sure she knew that.

He could almost hear the relaxing smile she offered in return. "I love you. Hurry home."

* * *

Hurry he did, but when he got out of the car, the sun was already setting. She was sitting outside with Pebbles in her lap. The cat hissed and jumped away at the sight of the car that she so hated, for it only ever took her to the dreaded veterinarian. Maleficent stood, and her eyes widened at the bruises that dappled his scarred neck. Cool fingers trailed over the sore places. "Oh my god." She kissed the ripple of darkness. "You said you weren't hurt," she accused.

He kissed her forehead. "Hey, it's okay. I'm fine. Really. Believe me, I've had much worse." He fiddled with her hair and smiled. His pocket felt heavy.

She inhaled his scent deeply. "I'm sorry," she murmured. It was still there, the little voice in the back of her head that told her he was injured because of her and that, if she'd tried hard enough, she could have prevented it. "I never thought he would hurt you."

"I threw the first punch," he admitted. She raised her eyes to him. "Don't look at me like that. I have to defend what's mine. That just so happens to be you."

"I can't believe you actually had the guts to hit him."

"I couldn't believe he had the guts to slander your name after what he did to you." He leaned in for a kiss. "C'mon. Let's go eat dinner or something. I missed you."

She smiled into his lips. "I brewed you some sweet tea, the way you like, and I made a meatloaf." A dainty hand combed through his thick, black hair, and her eyes fell closed as he drew her closer.

She smelled of lavender when he sucked in a deep breath. Warm. Soft. Solid. She was so perfect. All perfect. "I love you," he reminded her tenderly. "I have a surprise for you, my dearest."

She gave him the slightest of laughs. "I don't suppose you can tell me what it is now?"

"Of course not. After dinner," he promised. He grabbed onto her and tugged her into the house. Pebbles followed them, seeking food. Diaval gave her a small slice of meatloaf and earned a glare from Maleficent. "Oh, shush. A little bit of meatloaf never killed anything, least of all our favorite tiny feline." Then he cut some for her and put it on her plate. "I love you," he told her with a brief kiss to the tip of her nose that made her smile, and the barest hint of a blush rose to her cheeks.

They ate next to each other on the couch, and dinner went from mealtime to playtime as they began to feed each other clumsily. Little bites kept rolling down the front of his shirt, and they laughed each time a new one did. He didn't speak of the details of what had happened with Kingsmith, and neither did she, and they were happier for it. But they finished dinner. The weight in his pocket grew ever heavier until he was forced to draw it out into his closed fist. His heartbeat suddenly picked up to the thundering of a horse's hoofs. "Millie?" he whispered. She turned to look at him. "You know I love you more than anything in this world, don't you?" Of course she knew. He told her daily. He told her when he cradled her at night and when he kissed her in the morning and when she snarled at him to _keep his heels down, dammit_. He told her when he babbled at her about his book, and she could hardly follow but smiled and nodded all the same, and he told her when they cooked together and watched movies together and read together and bathed together, and he told her when she tried to teach him how to weave a more intricate braid. He told her how much she was loved whenever he got the chance, because he couldn't imagine a world where he didn't love her.

Her eyebrows drew together in a puzzled look of concern. "Of course I know that. I love you, Diaval, and I know that you love me just as dearly. Have I given you a reason to doubt that?" She touched the scar by his left eye absently.

He kissed her, just in case it was the last time he'd ever get the chance, and he didn't care that she tasted like meatloaf because she made a damn good meatloaf. His closed fist opened slowly. Her hand grasped at his when he slid down onto the floor on his knees and opened the ring box. "Maleficent." He was breathless. He took a breath and tried to remember that breathing was a _good_ thing, and it was pretty mandatory if he didn't want to pass out in front of her. "When I met you, you told me that you don't believe in fairytales, or happily ever afters, or true love." He swallowed hard. "And at that time, I didn't really, either." His heart would not stop its incessant skipping. He wondered if he would have a heart attack before it was over.

He gulped again. "But then I fell in love with you. I learned that fairytales are real, because I've lived in one from the moment I met you, and any _ever after _with you would certainly be happy because how could it be otherwise?" Tears of passion and devotion were swamping his eyes, and he could only pray that he would get his words out before he collapsed into weeping. "And if any love is true, ours is the truest of them all." His courage was fading, but he would be damned if he didn't finish this. He remembered that there had been a transitory part of his speech, but he couldn't remember it, and he wasn't going to work himself up any more. "Maleficent Moors, will you marry me?"

It was all Diaval could do to stare at her for a mere second before she flung her arms about him. "Yes!" she shrieked into his ear, and he didn't care that he was left temporarily deaf. "Yes!" she repeated in a tiny whisper.

He felt as if every muscle in his body was weak, and he slid onto his back in the middle of the living room floor. She laughed and let him pull her along with him, and they became a tangle of limbs. He pushed the ring onto her finger. "I love you. I love you."

She kissed him roughly and fisted her hands in his hair. "Make love with me, Diaval. Right now."

He turned onto his side. "In the floor?" he gasped. Breath was harder to come by.

"Yes!"

He kicked her cane under the couch. "Alright," he agreed with a wicked smirk, and he started to unbutton her shirt. The blouse easily peeled away, but there was another frustrating layer of thin white cloth. She peppered his bruised neck with gentle kisses. "Oh, my love," he whispered. For just a moment, he reveled in the feel of her against him—not yet naked, not yet sweat-slicked and pleasured, but completely and fully _her_.

"Yours," she promised. "Yours forever."


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Have another update before next weekend. :) This story is nearing its finale; expect two or three more chapters after this one. I have several AUs playing around my head (one of them is a Silence of the Lambs AU and it's driving me seriously insane) but I don't know which one I'm going to write, or if I might head back to the Marching Angels for awhile, as it is in desperate need of an update. It's all up in the air at the moment. Anywho, enjoy!**

* * *

"I think it should be in the spring," Diaval decided abruptly. She turned her head from where she was peering out the window and turned to him, raising an eyebrow in question. "Our wedding, I mean."

She shrugged. "You design it as you like, since my idea was brutally rejected," she snipped.

He frowned. "People who get married in Vegas are the people who wake up next to total strangers and get divorced like a week later. Not very promising for a relationship that I actually want to spend the rest of my life in." He tilted his head. "But if it's like your dream to get married in Vegas, by all means, let's pack our bags."

She snorted and grabbed his hand. "I didn't necessarily mean in Vegas. I meant drive to a courthouse and get married without all the drama in white dresses."

His frown, if anything, deepened. "I want to marry you the _right_ way!"

"You mean the way where my dad walks me down the aisle, and all of my non-existent sisters are the bridesmaids, and all of our cousins and distant family is there to congratulate us and send us on our way? Yeah, that's not happening." She smirked at his despondent look, and leaned forward to kiss him. Hands tangled in thick black hair, mussing it from the neat look he'd tried so hard to perfect. "I love you, and that's not going to change no matter where we get married."_ Get married._ The phrase was strange on her lips. "But right now, we should probably be more concerned that your publisher is going to be here in approximately fifteen minutes, and all I can think about is making love to you."

Her breath hotly smarted down his cheeks. "Millie, if we come out all messy and sweaty, she'll be totally unimpressed with our professionalism." She raised her eyebrows in a challenge. He found his mouth dry. She never failed to take his breath away, and gods, she knew it. "But I'm sure she'll never suspect a thing if we have a good time in the shower." She balked at the word _shower._ They had never shared one before; she was generally averse to them, considering the fact that she needed a special nonslip cane just to take one. He read the hesitation in her eyes, and he kissed her again. "I won't let you fall," he promised. She nodded certainly, and they headed to the bathroom.

* * *

"No, no, I've got my hair! You need to go answer the door!"

"I'm still sopping wet!"

"Get the door, Diaval!"

"But my—"

"_Get the door!_" She snatched a brush through her hair haphazardly and winced with every tug. Droplets spattered everything left and right. Shower sex was great, but not on a rushed clock. "Go, before she leaves!" The hair dryer was on full blast. She shoved Diaval out of the bathroom and sent him stumbling up the hallway, and nothing else could be heard over the roar of her dryer until her hair was merely damp and she clicked it off. She tugged it back into a severe bun with no loose hairs giving a hint of informality (or of the improper actions in which she had engaged only minutes before) and adjusted the striking black dress they'd chosen for the occasion. Unfortunate cat hairs littered it. She found her back trembling with the strain of the shower, and leaned heavily upon her cane when she left the bathroom.

Diaval was shaking hands too roughly with a pretty young blonde woman. Upon seeing Maleficent, she pulled her hand out of his and reached for hers with relief in her eyes. "Hello! I'm Leila Keener." She hated to admit it, but their attire was much more formal than that of their publisher. She begrudgingly switched her cane into her left hand and shook the proffered limb.

"Maleficent Moors," she greeted. She scanned the blue eyes for a hint of the monster realtor they'd known, but the woman seemed genuine. Even still, Diaval looped his arm through hers and let their hands catch, pointedly tapping the ring upon her finger.

Diaval led the brigade of pulling out his drafts. Leila babbled on uselessly about his work, persistently repeating words like romantic and ingenious. Once she even dared to use the phrase, "The next Nicholas Sparks," to which Maleficent hedged, "We don't really appreciate Sparks's work here."

Their words made no sense to Maleficent, who knew little about writing and nothing about publishing. She felt surprisingly uneducated as they used big words to describe little things. (What was alliteration again? High school had been quite a long time ago. And allusion? She remembered it from English class, but it had been Greek to her then and still was now. Ah, metaphor, she knew that. It…had something to do with comparing, maybe.) Leila's voice tugged her from her thoughts. "Miss Moors, you said you wrote on this work, as well?" the blonde inquired.

Diaval opened his mouth to respond with a smooth lie already prepared, but Maleficent was faster. She had no intention of pretending she wrote his book. "No. I was the sole force of encouraging him to eat and bathe during these last few months," she replied drily.

The publisher laughed flippantly and flicked a blonde curl behind her neck. "Well, at least he hasn't pulled a Van Gogh yet, huh?"

She smiled through clenched teeth. The woman was annoying, no matter how she tried to sugarcoat it. "Yes, it is very fortunate that he still has both ears." The giggles gradually died away when she seemed to realize that Maleficent was no equally amused. Business talk came between Diaval and the young woman once more, and the brunette found herself staring at the wall in ennui. Finally she interrupted her fiancé (it excited her so much to think of him with that word now, rather than just _boyfriend_ or god forbid _roommate_) midsentence. "I'm going to make some sandwiches. Ham or turkey?"

"Turkey," they answered in unison, though Diaval's black eyes were puzzled. She, too, was confused; inattentiveness was not in her nature. Still, she left the room with her cane in her hand, and its weight was a natural comfort for the dissension in her heart. She both despised and reveled in the touch of her cane. Her back gave its familiar ache. An unwelcome thought wormed its way into her brain. _He could've had her instead_. It made her gut clench and her eyes water, and she hated that after all this time there were still those whispered words in her head that claimed he deserved better. It didn't matter what he deserved; he wanted her, and he had her. He owned every inch of her, marked her as his own in those moments when everything disappeared except each other.

She tried to listen to their voices as they chatted, but they were discussing particular characteristics of some of the minor members of his cast, and she found herself more intrigued by the bread and lunch meat than by their conversation. She'd never felt stupid when speaking to Diaval before; why should she now? Then again, they rarely held intelligent literary conversations. To her, books were what they were, and they could be appreciated all the same without delving into them like a literature professor. She shrugged nonchalantly, though it remained a little buzzing bee in the back of her skull. Was she stupid? Well, if her own biased opinion had anything to do with it, she didn't think so. Maybe not _educated_, per say, but definitely_ not_ stupid. Some things she didn't need reassurances about.

They were out of cheese. She knew Diaval wanted mayo, but she didn't know this Leila person at all, so she was just getting meat and bread. She poured two glasses of water and, with all the careful balance of a one-handed person, found the center of gravity to transport it back to the little room. In her absence, Diaval's eyes had chosen a particular place on the wall to fix themselves, while Leila began to pointedly twist the ring on her left ring finger. She put the platter between them and took her seat once again beside Diaval.

The meeting dragged by for what seemed to be a few thousand more minutes before Leila, feeling everything was finalized enough for editing, told them to start thinking about cover art and send it to her when they found it. They all had to shake hands again, and then the young blonde left their house. She drove a sports car, Maleficent noted disjointedly before she swung back on Diaval and mashed her lips to his. He let a soft, "Mmf!" of surprise, but his warm arms wrapped about her and held her to him. They pressed against her back uncomfortably, and he read the expression on her face, sliding them down to her hips. "What brought that on?" he teased.

"I've been waiting hours," she whispered. She rested her forehead against his breastbone. He was so safe, so warm. Everything she'd ever wanted and sundry. All she'd ever needed and much, much more.

He tucked a finger under her chin and tilted her head up as if for another kiss, but his eyebrows knitted together in concern. "Are you alright?" he asked her.

She frowned. "Yes. Are you?"

"You look like something's bothering you."

She shook her head and shrugged. "If it is, I haven't yet identified it."

He seemed to shake it off. "Okay." He leaned in for another kiss. "I guess it all seems so surreal. Something has to be wrong for it to really be happening, you know?"

"I do," she agreed. Forehead against forehead, they touched noses with each other. "I'm tired," she admitted. He smiled back at her and nodded against her. They lay down in their bed and curled up like kittens with Pebbles appropriately at the foot of their bed.

When Maleficent sat up at three AM, she knew Diaval's theory of something going wrong had come true when she heard a loud retching coming from the bathroom. "Diaval?" she called. She reached for her cane and rolled out of bed. "You okay?" More gagging. He surely didn't _sound_ okay.

The gagging died away. She knocked on the door. A rough voice called, "Go back to sleep. I'm fine."

She heard him spit up more, and she shook her head. "You're not fine." She opened the door, deciding she could hold her stomach for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. He looked oddly tiny with his cheek resting against the cool rim of the toilet, face flushed and saliva drooling down from his lips. She grabbed a washcloth and wet it, and she knelt to wipe his face. "You should've woken me." Sleepy black eyes offered no comment. "Go back to bed," she soothed. "I'll get you some water and chipped ice, okay?" If he wanted to argue, he didn't. He staggered haphazardly to his feet and wobbled back toward their bedroom. She went to do as she said while mentally reviewing what he'd eaten the day prior. The turkey sandwich, plus eggs for breakfast, but upon checking the dates, neither was spoiled. Perhaps it was simply a bug. She instantly blamed the publisher for dragging in some foreign germ.

"I'm fine, you don't have to…" Diaval tried.

She sat beside him on the bed. "Shush. You need to drink some water." She wiped his sweaty brow with a cloth. Careful fingers guided the straw to his lips, and he sucked halfheartedly. "Good," she praised softly. One hand wandered to his hair and pawed through it tenderly. His eyelashes fluttered closed. "Go back to sleep. Wake me up if you feel sick again." She crawled under the covers beside him. Her cheek pressed to his heated, flushed skin, and he kept shivering despite the covers that she had wrapped around him. "I love you."

Her favorite lips curled into a soft, weary smile. "Love you, too." He inhaled deeply in her hair. She listened to his breath even and deepen, and she sighed deeply. She hated that he was sick. She wanted him to be healthy; she wanted the best for him no matter what. That was normal for someone she loved, wasn't it? Of course it was. She would be idiotic to think that she would wish illness on someone she loved. Her sleep-muddled mind finally succumbed to the darkness of sleep.

Unfortunately, Diaval awoke at dawn retching again. Maleficent rubbed his bare, sweaty back while he spat to clear the foul taste from his mouth, and she went to get him some more water. Sleepy black eyes dragged over her face. She trailed her fingers over his scars. "Keep drinking," she encouraged, offering the half-full glass. He nodded dully and obeyed until the glass was empty. "Good." She looked at the clock again. "I'm going to make some coffee. Do you want me to get you something?" He shook his head. Gentle, warm fingers combed through his thick hair, and he sighed contentedly. Sickness wasn't as hellish as it had once been; he could handle anything with her by his side.

He didn't realize when he fell asleep, but when his eyes opened, it was nearly noon. Maleficent sat beside him reading _Great Expectations_ for the umpteenth time since he had once told her that, when he met her, he thought she was like Estella. He didn't know if she kept reading it because she was mystified by the resemblance or if she was still searching for it. It didn't matter. His stomach turned, but he didn't think he was going to throw up again. Yet. "Good morning, sunshine," she greeted softly. Her face was written in a look of kind concern with a curl of a worried smile curled on those lips he so desperately wanted to kiss. Then he remembered he was sick, and he probably smelled and tasted like puke, and he was sore and chilled all over, and kissing her probably wasn't the best idea in the world.

He grunted in response. "Morning." His voice was rough and gravelly. Despite his long slumber, he still felt exhausted. But he couldn't go back to sleep. He needed to feed Aurora. She would be waiting by now. He sat up. "Ugh." His head spun dizziness. He pressed one palm to his temple.

Maleficent placed her hands on him. "You should lie down," she urged.

"I've got to feed Aurora." He went to fling his legs out of the bed regardless of the outcome, but she stopped him.

"I took care of it. Lie down before I make you."

Mild shock strained through his muddled mind as he slowly lay back down on the bed. Her? Feeding Aurora? That didn't fit together in the same sentence. Namely, it required her to enter the pasture. Secondly, it most likely required physical contact between her and the mare. He wanted to question her, but his brain was numb. "Oh," was all he could manage.

Despite his tiredness, he couldn't manage to find a peaceful sleep again. After half an hour of tossing and turning and shivering and sipping at some water, she finally reached for her cane. "I'll run you a bath, okay?" Her fingernails scratched at his scalp, and he relished in her touch, and he hated when it left him. The sound of water running, though, soothed his sullen attitude. "Are you coming?" she called impatiently.

Drawn out of his stupor, he flung the covers off of himself and shivered when the air struck his bare, sweaty, fevered skin. "Coming, coming," he called. He quickly removed his undershorts and haphazardly threw them at the hamper (and missed). Much to his disappointment, she remained fully clothed, sitting on the edge of the tub. There was no awkwardness of averted eyes; she merely gestured at the water, and he sank into it gladly. A wet washcloth smoothed over his shoulders and down his back, caressed the scars on his chest, scoured the fuzz under his arms. She offered him a relief that he could get from no medication; she was his drug. After a few minutes of relaxation under her touch, he hoarsely teased, "A bit late to decide to wait for marriage, isn't it?"

She gave a dry chuckle. "Shush. You're sick." She tenderly grazed her nails over the sensitive spots on his neck, paying special attention to the rippling scars. The stories of those scars resonated throughout her mind. They echoed around the crevices of her mind. Each little piece of her couldn't help but hate his father, and she was filled with a love so full and untainted that she dared not speak for fear of releasing the sudden tears that burbled to her eyes. Then, she put voice to her emotions. It was a weak voice, weak and vulnerable. "I love you."

He caught her thin hand between his and brought it to his lips. "I love you, too." She got him a towel, and he dried quickly. She'd been spattered by water, but made no move to change clothes while he started searching for some more thin pajamas. With a sigh, he tugged on a clean pair of undershorts and a baggy shirt. She went to fetch him more water. "You don't have to be my wench, you know," he reminded her patiently.

She quieted him. "Get some more sleep," she advised. He hated to admit it, but his eyes were growing heavy once again. She lay down beside him, and he could feel her eyes scanning across him. Ensuring his comfort. Checking for signs of healing or degeneration. Traveling across his body just because that was what felt natural. He found solace in her presence, and he found the rest he so valiantly sought.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: This is the second to last installment of Neighbors! The last chapter is, unfortunately, not yet finished; I should have it up next weekend. Three days for me! Super excited to be productive. I have some ideas for canon-verse stories (short stories or one-shots), and one for a longer AU where Diaval and Maleficent were engaged, but she had a serious car accident and doesn't remember anything about him. I'm not sure which ones will actually get written due to my schedule; I'll get it worked out. **

* * *

Diaval found a fence separating him from his fiancé yet again while her watchful eyes criticized his application of the bridle. Despite his attempts at coaxing her through the gate ("You'll be able to watch me better"), his efforts were futile. She refused to near Aurora. It was as simple as that. She only came close to the mare by necessity, never by her own free will. So their lessons continued with her peering over the fence at him. He slid the bit against Aurora's teeth and deftly stuck his thumb in the back of her mouth. She obediently opened with a dramatic sigh of frustration. The metal found its place on top of her tongue and rested there. He frowned at it. "I don't suppose you would be in favor of getting one of those bitless bridles for her, would you?"

"They're called hackamores. Loosen the throatlatch, would you?" She nodded to where he'd slid the strap up to the third hole. He grumbled under his breath; every other strap and tie on the horse had to be pulled tight, but _this one_ was supposed to be loose. He supposed he would get it right one day without instruction. She took a deep breath and continued to speak, "I would not be the one to ask if you intend on switching to bitless work. I was never allowed to ride with a hackamore." She watched him lengthen the stirrups with care. "There are many trainers that advocate tackless work."

Diaval thoughtfully glanced over the tack that adorned his mare. Deliberating for a moment, he held his chin between his thumb and forefinger before turning to her, asking, "Does that look right?" She nodded. He gathered the reins into his hand and agilely swung onto her. Gentle hands guided her to the gate. "Let me out, will you?"

Maleficent's eyes flashed when she tilted her head back to gaze at him. "Why?" He had never ridden outside of the pasture before, and there was no reason for him to start now. She was comfortable letting him have his fun in their little stretch of land. But wandering beyond the comfort of the fence line where she could monitor him was unthinkable. Not that she doubted his adeptness in the saddle, but she doubted his mount's stability. Beyond the fence line laid dangers. Coyotes and whatever else could be in the woods, not to mention the numerous things that the little beast might find a cause to spook. Deer, squirrels, rabbits—hell, even falling leaves—could spook horses. They were creatures of flight, after all. But that wasn't her only concern, was it? Her concern was that he would get hurt somewhere she couldn't reach him, deep in the woods. What good would she be, pacing about their home with her sore back, if he was lying wounded out in the forest?

He shrugged. "Why not?" At her narrowed eyes, he sighed and continued, "C'mon, Millie, I'm like four and half feet off the ground. What's the worst that can happen?" Her eyebrows knitted together. "Don't answer that. Let me out." She remained immobile. He took a deep breath and went to dismount—he could let himself out, dammit—but then she started toward the latch and, slowly, let it slide open. She swung open the gate, and he guided Aurora out of the only place she'd called home over the past months. The mare was nervous beneath him, but she followed his directions despite flickering ears and wandering eyes.

Maleficent gazed after him. "Where do you plan on going, exactly?" She knew he wouldn't miss the waver in her voice, the traitorous little part that feared so desperately for his safety.

"I'm going into the woods." He gestured outwardly to the forest beyond their property. "Don't look so sullen. I'll be back soon. Those tomatoes look like they need picking." With that, he tapped Aurora with his heels, and she leapt into a bold trot. Their single form vanished into the foliage of honeysuckles and other various vines. Once they had picked blackberries from back there, she recalled. The land appeared to be ownerless, for the only neighbors that had ever greeted them were the three sisters from down the road. She could hope for his sake that the property owner didn't decide to make a surprise appearance.

With a hard swallow, she turned back to her garden. Her hoe leaned against the building where she'd left it the day before. He was right; the tomatoes needed picking. She got a plastic bag and sat down on her bum in the dirt. The ripe fruit came off of the stem easily, and she plopped them in one by one. Her peppers weren't quite ready. She pawed at the moist soil. They would be ready in a week, if her professional opinion was on point. She went through the more analytical parts of gardening in her mind and checked on some plants even though she already knew they weren't ready for harvesting, and then she drew patterns in the dirt with her fingers. Anything to distract herself from Diaval.

She had dreams. Almost every night, she would awaken in a panic from another night terror of watching his broken body crushed beneath the mare he so loved. He rarely knew of her horrors, and even more seldom did he ask about them. He was not nosy; he cradled her close to him and whispered things in her ear until she had calmed enough to sleep, and any inkling he had about her slumbering realities he kept to himself. Her dreams fed her fear of the mare. She hated the beast but loved it at the same time; how could she not love something that Diaval held so dear?

Upon looking at the picture she had drawn in the dirt, she turned away. It was a crudely drawn horse, complete with stick legs and a flowing mane. She scrambled to her feet and limped inside to wash her hands and make dinner. The dirt under her fingernails was uncomfortable, but she didn't really mind. Still, she scrubbed at them vigorously and she put some vegetables on to steam. She had managed to learn how to properly cook a baked potato since she cooked Christmas dinner for Diaval those years ago, and she took pride in her new skill. Enthralled by her cooking, she didn't notice the passage of hours, and when she looked at the clock, nearly two had passed by her. Panic struck her heart. Where was Diaval? She headed outside.

She hobbled toward the tree line. Her heartbeat was crowding out the sound of coherent thoughts. "Diaval?" she called into the trees. No response save for the chirping of birds and crickets. "Diaval?" she repeated, feeling stupid. If he could hear her, he would answer her. Which meant that he couldn't hear her, which meant she was probably going to have to go into the woods to find him. The mere thought made her back ache. She was not a creature built for forest travel, and she would venture to say that her cane would cause more problems than it fixed. "Last chance, Diaval! You better not be playing a trick on me!" Of course he would never play a trick on her. At least not this kind of trick.

She took a hesitant step into the undergrowth. She could already feel the tendrils that grabbed onto her cane. Going by foot was impossible for her. What else could she do? Certainly it was far too early to report him as a missing person, but she knew he wouldn't have been gone so long if he wasn't in trouble. He could be lost. He might have wandered too far and got caught by the invisible landowner. He could have fallen and lost Aurora. Worse, he could have fallen and hurt himself. She knew that beast of a mare wouldn't have hesitated a moment before abandoning him. What if he'd been knocked unconscious? There were coyotes in the woods; what if he was attacked? She had to go after him, even if the land was nearly impassable for her.

The woods had no set trail. Vines dangled everywhere and dragged at her feet; briars hooked onto her clothes and snagged her. More than once, she found herself on the ground after tripping over a stray branch. One rolled out from under her cane, and the bark of a tree scraped her face as she fell. She wiped away the blood with the back of her hand and cursed. Her back was beginning to throb with exertion. "Diaval!" she shouted. "Diaval, can you hear me?" _If he could hear me, he would have called back by now_, she scolded herself. Keen green eyes flickered about, searching for any sign of their passage. Then she saw it—a hoof print. She walked in that direction. The knees in her pants were already torn and her palms were scraped. "Diaval!"

She heard Aurora coming before she saw her; in an instant, the golden and white mare was rearing before her. Her eyes were rolled white with terror. The woman only had a moment to snatch up the reins. The mare jerked against the pulling at her mouth and thrust her head high into the air. Blood from many thorn piercings dotted the flawless coat. Burrs and briars were tangled in her mane. It was clear from the sweat that poured from her that she had run quite some way. "Whoa!" Maleficent shouted. The word was enough to calm the wild mare. She repeated it softer. "Whoa. Easy." Her prior panic was reduced to a mere snorting accompanied with heavy panting. She knew that voice; that was the voice from the other side, the one she could never properly see but always knew was there, watching. "Hey. Easy, girl."

Maleficent offered one hand between them. A whiskered muzzle pushed there, searching for a peppermint, but she had none. "Diaval!" she called again. It was useless. He wasn't near. "Where'd you leave him?" she accused the mare with glaring eyes. The horse shifted with flicking ears. "I didn't think you'd know, would you?" She began to think through her options. They were pretty cut and dry: she could leave the horse and keep walking, or she could lead her back to their home and double back to find Diaval. Or… Her eyes traveled over the beast before her. Did she have a choice? She didn't. There was no choice in the matter, and she cursed whatever gods were in existence for placing this task before her.

She didn't have the flexibility to lift her foot into the stirrup, but she did have the arm-strength to pull herself up into the saddle. Aurora spun about in a circle at the awkward tugging of her reins, and there was nowhere for her cane to rest without jabbing the mare in the side. She remembered something she'd observed long ago at the only rodeo she'd ever attended (_"Western riding is for pussies,"_ her father had said), and she tried to stick the end of it in her shoe. "Whoa!" she snapped at the mare, snatching roughly on the reins until she came to a stop. Her actions, she knew, were not of the safest sort, but they would have to do. She hooked her arm around her cane and held it against her body to keep it from falling. Then, with expertise that had lain dormant for so long, her heels booted the mare into a slow canter from a standstill.

The forest blurred by her. Aurora was quick on her feet and sturdier than a mule, never hitting a hole or tripping on a root. She yelled out Diaval's name at intervals, but he didn't respond. So she pressed deeper into the woods, even as the sun began to set. The mare was panting and drenched in sweat, and their pace slowed to an ambling walk though the urgency of their situation only increased. "Diaval!" she shouted into the darkness surrounding them.

A sharp movement came from the bushes, and Aurora bolted sideways. Maleficent dug in her knees. She was slung off balance and pitched haphazardly onto the mare's neck. However, she was certain she was going to make a full recovery until the deer advanced on them. The beast whirled around in a full three-sixty, terrified and confused, before choosing a random direction to bolt toward. She grabbed one of the reins and pulled sharply into a turn. A sharp pain went through her entire body as she was crushed against a tree. Her cane fell. She kicked against the trunk of the tree in a last-ditch effort to stay atop her mount, and she found herself fortunately enough pitched back into the saddle sporting a fair amount of scrapes and bruises. With a glance back at her cane, she gave it a despairing look at its two broken pieces. "Aw, shit," she mumbled. She was wandering about the woods in the depth of the night searching for Diaval, who was probably injured. "Diaval!" she yelled into the night. "Diaval, please answer me!" He voice was breaking. How could it not? Her back was killing her. She slumped her shoulders in an effort to escape the pain, but it only worsened.

Then, faintly, she heard him. "Millie?" His voice, while weak and distant, was a blessed comfort to her. She kept scanning the area where the voice had come from, and he called again, "I'm here, Millie!" She guided the mare to the left. At the base of a steep embankment, Diaval sat with his back to a tree trunk.

Aurora's steadiness picked the best path down to the man she knew as master. Maleficent dropped to the ground, and the impact of pain through her back brought her to her knees. Hooking one arm through the rains, she crawled toward Diaval. He was white as a sheet, even in the dark. One of his arms was bent and twisted, obviously broken, and his breathing was quick and shallow. "Diaval," she whispered. She touched his cheek. His hair was sticky with blood where he'd hit his head. "You're hurt."

He grabbed onto her with his good arm. "I could say the same for you." He offered a weak smile. "I love you."

She kissed him fervently. "I love you." He winced. "We need to get you to the hospital." She tucked an arm around him. How were they going to stand? She could hardly support herself, let alone him along with her. "Can you walk?" She sure as hell couldn't. Her eyes fell on Aurora. "Get up." She pulled at him.

His tired eyes followed hers. "Aurora's too small to carry both of us," he protested feebly.

"No, she's not," Maleficent shot back through gritted teeth. "Get on. Go!" She pushed him up with all the strength she could muster, and then she pulled herself up after him. The mare gave an audible groan beneath her. "Hold on," she warned him. "Yah!" She kicked Aurora sharply, and the mare bounded forward. His face pressed into her shoulder, and it added strength to her fading reserves. A detached, irrational part of her was grieving for her lost cane.

With each thundering hoof beat, she found herself aching with more pains. Her spine felt like a coiled wire, tightening and tightening with every bound forward. But Aurora was a quick creature and determined and honest; she gave her all back toward the house, and only when her riders had dismounted and torn the tack from her quivering body did she finally collapse in exhaustion. Before Diaval could utter a cry for his beloved mare, Maleficent ordered him to the car, and he obeyed only because his swollen, sprained ankle and broken arm knew that they could take care of Aurora later. He watched his fiancé disappear inside their house, moving oh-so-slowly, and she exited with a spare cane and her purse. Pained, she crawled into the driver's seat beside him and quickly downed some Advil. He released his broken arm in favor of touching her. "Are you alright?"

"It's you I'm worried about," she quipped.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I'm fine." She pulled out into the road. The street lights illuminated the road in a hopeful way that Ulstead had never provided. He went back to cradling his arm to his chest, falling into a sullen silence. Fear for him drove her pain away.

Their ride was spent in silence. She pulled into the parking lot and ordered him to stay, returning with a wheel chair. His ankle had swollen badly, and he was too pained to argue against her, instead heaving himself into the chair. She pushed him into the ER. "I love you," he called back to her as they wheeled him away from her toward x-rays.

"I love you," she told him behind the closing doors. She wasn't sure if he could hear. She collapsed into a waiting room chair and batted away the harried nurse that urged her to seek her own treatment. "I'm fine." She just wanted to be with him, and she wanted him to be alright. More than anything, she wanted him to be okay. She couldn't have cared less about the mare in their backyard; Diaval was her life, and she'd let him go out into the forest with little argument. The whole day could've been avoided if she'd held her ground. She thought of his broken arm, and she felt sick to her stomach.

Half an hour passed before a nurse got her and briefed her over his condition—a broken arm that would take about six weeks to heal, a sprained ankle that he couldn't walk on for a week, a few scrapes and gashes that didn't need stitches—and she was allowed to see him. He was loopy from the painkillers. "Can you see the curtain?" he asked her in a loudly projected whisper. He pawed at air with his good arm.

"No, I don't see any curtain," she deadpanned. "How do you feel?"

"Of course you don't see the curtain, silly! It's invisible!" He began to cackle loudly, as if he'd told the joke of the century. Then his face became oddly reserved and thoughtful. He looked prepared to say something profound. "I don't eat whole bananas. Only sliced."

"I know, Diaval. I've sliced them for you before, remember?"

He tilted his head. "I think bananas are shaped like penises."

She snorted. "I feel graced with your opinion on the shape of bananas." She touched the back of his hand. He broke out into a wide grin at her touch. "How do you feel?" she asked him again.

"Like I want to cuddle with you right now," he replied with a self-assured nod. Hopeful eyes widened.

She couldn't help but smile down at him, and she planted a gentle kiss on his forehead. "When we get home, alright, love?" A gentle hand caressed his cheek.

He grabbed onto her hand and held it there. "M'kay," he murmured in return. He managed to find peace in a slumber.

Several hours passed, and it was two AM when he was officially discharged. Maleficent took some crutches for him—thank the foresight that they purchased a wheelchair accessible house—and drove him home. He spent most of the time cracking jokes that weren't too funny, but his profound statements of utter wisdom were what made her snicker, as well at the innocent questions that he already knew the answers for. "Do you want us to have kids?" he asked, tugging at her sleeve eagerly.

She sighed patiently. "It's dangerous for me to have kids, Diaval. You know that."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Do _you_ want us to have kids?"

He threw his head back in a cackle. "Of _course_ not! I would be a _terrible_ father!"

She snorted at his blatant honesty with himself. "I'm glad we can agree in that regard." At his hurt look, she amended, "About not having kids, not about you being a terrible father." In her mind, she pictured a mini-them cradled in his arms, him bottle-feeding it while she plugged her ears against its ear-piercing wails. She mentally thanked the brilliant man that created Yaz as she turned into their driveway. "Don't get out yet. I have to get your crutches." She leaned heavily upon her cane and thought of the warm, inviting bed that awaited them.

He heaved his body upward onto the fixtures and tilted his head back to look up at her. "You're super-duper pretty," he remarked with admiration glowing in his eyes. He could hardly keep his balance, and she kept steadying him.

She snorted. "I'm glad that magnificent prose is not the same that wrote a recently published novel." He looked confused. She kissed his forehead. "Thank you, my sweetest." He smiled up at her brightly. And as they crawled into bed together, he got his requested cuddle.

"I think…we crossed the last thing off of the list," Diaval mumbled to her as he snuggled his face between her breasts. "Didn't we?"

"Yes," she affirmed quietly. She bent her neck and pushed her face into his hair. "Go to sleep."

He wriggled closer to her under the blankets. "I love you, Millie," he whispered.

"I love you, too."


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: It's over. I can't believe it, but it's over. This story has been a journey for me. I'm sad it's over, but I'm ready to move on to some new work! **

"Diaval, get back in bed!" Maleficent ordered. She dragged him by the biceps and, with expert agility, firmly planted herself in his lap, rendering him unable to move. "You are going to stay on this mattress while I go feed that creature you've got in our backyard, do you understand?"

His casted arm rested around her middle. "Millie, I'm fine," he whined.

"Your foot is in a boot and your arm is in a cast. You are not fine and will not be fine for a long time. Lie down." She pressed her hands against his chest, and he reluctantly obeyed her. "If I find you anywhere other than this bed when I get back, a broken arm will be the least of your problems," she threatened for good measure, though her eyes were soft and concerned.

He rolled his eyes and pulled her in for a kiss. "Your bedside manner is a little lacking." His lips were warm and soft. She thought that she could kiss him forever with no threat of boredom or weariness. His arms secured themselves around her. "How about you stay right here and let me kiss you, hmm?" He peppered her face in light kisses.

She wriggled against him, careful not to jostle his arm in the cast. "Your horse is going to be hungry." There was a traitorous prick of guilt within her that worried for the mare's condition; they had pushed her too hard yesterday and hadn't checked on her upon their return home. She imagined her father was rolling in his grave at the neglect of what he must have considered a fine mare. But Diaval took precedence. Her back gave a dull ache, pulling her from her thoughts, and she continued her weak struggle. "Let me up and I'll make you some breakfast." She didn't want to leave his embrace. He was so warm. Of their own accord, her arms snaked around his neck. "I love you," she revealed quietly, as if it were some sort of secret.

He pushed his nose against her collarbones. "I love you." How gentle and sweet his touches, how loving his eyes, that she should never wish to leave the solid comfort of his embrace. "I think you are the most beautiful creature on this entire planet, and an army couldn't convince me otherwise," he provided.

"So you tell me daily." She meant for her voice to emerge as a deadpan, but it was instead soft and sweet and tender. He caressed her cheek with his good hand. "But your horse really is going to be hungry."

He itched to kiss her again, but restrained himself. "Alright. Come back to me with cuddles soon."

"You couldn't keep me away." She rolled away from him and headed outside. Her back ached sharply enough that the Advil couldn't numb it. The mare was standing at the fence with glass eyes anxiously awaiting her meal; she appeared to have made a full recovery from her exhaustion the day before. Maleficent dumped a scoop of grain into her pan. "I could ship you off to the glue factory, you know." There was no animosity in her voice. She did not blame Aurora in the same way she could not blame Silver. Unfortunate accidents were bound to happen, and she couldn't do anything to stop them. "I think it's time we got you a friend or two, little beast."

By spring, she found herself releasing two llamas into the pasture. Diaval stood beside her, beaming proudly at their new charges. Aurora fled their presences. She was uncertain of the newcomers, and Maleficent didn't blame her; they were rather intimidating creatures, what with their spitting over grain. But Diaval was positively charmed by them. "I think we should name them Cinderella and Prince Charming!"

She rolled her eyes. "It's my turn to name one of our creatures," she put in with a teasing glint in her eyes. He curled his fingers through hers. Obsidian eyes anxiously awaited her wisdom regarding the names of their llamas. She shrugged. "How about that one is Spinning Wheel and the other one is Needle?"

"No way!" he scoffed. "Those are terrible names!"

"Fine. Bella and Edward."

"You are the bane of my literary existence."

"Oh, really? We could name him Nicholas and her Sparks."

"I want a divorce."

"We're not married yet!" she protested playfully. He tugged her into a sweet kiss of love and adoration. "Prince Charming and Cinderella are great names," she purported into his gentle lips. He rocked his pelvis against hers, and she gasped. He gathered her against him. Her free arm flung around his neck and trailed up and down the scars there.

Diaval peppered her face with kisses. "Let's give our creatures some privacy." He hooked an arm about her waist. They headed inside, and passing through the kitchen, he caught a glimpse of the list on the refrigerator. He hadn't been able to convince Maleficent to get on Aurora again so he could take a picture (he learned after the pictures for their wedding invitations that she was a bit camera shy), but the crumpled piece of paper hung like a trophy with every item crossed out, either because they'd done it or they'd decided it wasn't worth the effort. Just beneath it hung his personal copy of the wedding invitation, where Maleficent wore a moss green dress that hung down to her calves. He couldn't believe the date was fast approaching—a week now. They had a week before Balthazar would walk her down the aisle, probably holding more excitement than her, and they would officially unite as a man and wife.

That night, they sat beside each other in the library. Diaval was reading a book, but she was busy scribbling in a notebook. Curiosity pricked at him, and he leaned over to see what she was doing. "What's that?" he asked, eyes narrowed.

She showed it to him. "I'm getting a new name. I need to practice signing it." She had misspelled his last name no less than three times, and the cursive was scarcely readable in comparison to her usual elegant penmanship. "It's not very good yet."

He kissed her because he could and whispered, "It's perfect." Her arms secured around his shoulders, and he pressed against her. "I can't believe I'm marrying you," he murmured. His warm palms supported her back as she drifted backward, pulling her legs onto the couch. He nuzzled her cheek, and his warm breaths made blush float up to her cheeks.

"I would have no one else."

He lifted her up in his strong arms and carried her to their bedroom. His reverent touches peeled her nightgown away and brought heat to her flesh. "I love you," he whispered. He ran his warm hand down her side and elicited a tremble. "I will spend the rest of my time by your side." He kneaded her breasts and pressed them with the flat of his hands. "I will love you forever."

She kissed trails over the scars on his chest. "I am so lucky." She rasped her tongue over his nipple. "You are a wonderful man, and I am so lucky that you would take me as your wife." She nibbled on his collar bones. He massaged her back, and she went still, loosening her muscles completely atop him. "I love you."

He rubbed gentle circles on her pale flesh. "You are magnificent." She shivered. Wetness was starting to leak between her thighs. He slid his hand to the juncture between her legs and wandered about there. Her hips lifted into his ministrations, and she whimpered. "Shush." He kissed her and slowly pulled his hand away. "Let's wait. Wait until our wedding night. We'll make it special." He suckled on her jawline for a moment, and then he drew back. "We're only getting married once, after all." He chuckled at her slightly pouty look. "We haven't had a good make-out session in a while," he reminded her. She needed no more convincing; she launched herself at him with hungry lips.

Diaval was busy feeding up Prince Charming and Cinderella when Maleficent held the phone out to him. "Talk to him, please," she encouraged with frustration in her eyes.

He took the phone. "Hello?"

Balthazar's harried voice rushed to him. "Diaval! Tell me what I need to wear!"

The groom-to-be almost chuckled, barely holding it back. "A suit. Just wear a suit."

"Yes, but what kind of suit?"

He gave Maleficent a blank look. "A normal suit. Red bow tie if you have one, but if you don't, it's not important." He could hear the panic at the other end of the line. Holding the phone away from his ear, he whispered to her, "One might think that he's the one getting married." She chuckled. "Balthazar, calm down. All you have to do is hold on to her and give her to me without passing out. It's really not that hard. Stop panicking." He wasn't listening to anything Diaval had to say, and eventually the conversation ended with as much fear as there had been in the first place.

Diaval had begun to work on his second book. Leila had encouraged him to write a sequel to his first work, but he knew that the story of Mallory and David was over—they lived happily ever after, the end. This book was no novel at all; he was crafting a book of poetry, and this time he was not writing alone. Maleficent was quite the poet. With this work, he was assured that his name would not be alone on the cover.

They spent the days before their wedding in a silence of reverie. Their interactions included soft, solemn words shared in the binder of poetry. Then, when she pulled up her own notebook and began to write, he couldn't help but ask what she was doing. "Our wedding is tomorrow," she replied softly. "And I have prepared no vows." She touched the back of his hand and gave it a squeeze, but protectively turned the paper away from him. "Not yet, snoopy. You'll hear them soon enough." Her ruby lips curled into a smile. "Have you already written yours?"

He yawned. "No. I'm planning on improvising." He lay down and put his head in her lap, staring up at her face cast in the lamplight. "Unfortunately I used my best prose when I proposed."

She traced the scars beside his eyes and teased, "But what if it's so underwhelming that I say I don't?"

He huffed. "I am one hundred percent certain that my wonderful improvisation will make you fall in love with me all over again." She caressed the curve of his lower lip, and he smiled, holding her hand there. "I love you." She began to pull her hand through his hair while she continued to write. He closed his eyes and, piece by tiny piece, mentally laid out his vows to her. The promises he was going to make to the love of his life were numerous. "If we ever have kids, I'm naming one of them after you." His voice was sleepily irrational. They had already agreed on not having kids multiple times.

She was silent for a long moment, and her pen stopped moving. "Do you want children, Diaval?" she asked him. His eyes flickered open, and he sat up. Her lips quivered slightly. "We could—I could stop taking my pills, I don't think it would take long…" She blinked rapidly. "It's a health risk, but I would be willing—"

He cut her off swiftly with a kiss. "We've been through this. No children." He would never risk her health for any of their desires, especially considering the health at risk would be her compromised spine. She was able to survive a minute-long roller coaster, but nine months of bearing weight that wasn't her own? The tiniest accident would leave her paralyzed, and an emergency caesarian section would be the least of their worries. "I don't want to hear any more about it."

Her eyes crinkled around the edges in relief. "Okay." She rested her crown against his. Almost inaudibly, she whispered, "Thank you."

He ran his hands through her hair. "Let's get some sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow." He helped her up, and she winced upon standing. He rested one hand at the base of her spine. "Are you well?" he asked her. She nodded and smiled. They wrapped up together in their blankets. Sleep descended upon them, and the neighbors now lovers had dreams of their future.

Diaval's heart pounded in his chest. He was glad of his black suit; he would have pit stained straight through any other color. Two of his cousins stood to his left, and their three giggling old neighbor women were at his right. Birds called in the air; the river was behind them. The public nature walk's gazebo had been the perfect place for their wedding. It was sunny and bright, the spring air still cool.

Then she was revealed. She was holding on to her cousin's arm, and while he knew that Balthazar's face was probably red with panic and high blood pressure, his eyes only saw Maleficent. The wedding gown was a simple thing with only a few beads; it didn't drag the ground to keep it from catching on her cane. Her cane…the reluctantly appointed bridesmaids had decorated it with tape of blue and green and piglet pink, and they were dressed in respective dresses. Beauty peeled off of her in waves. He wanted nothing more than to rip the vail off of her and kiss her.

Her hands found his, and Balthazar took her cane. Nervousness whispered around her eyes. "Oh!" one of the bridesmaids—the pink one, he thought her name was Knotgrass—squeaked. She quickly handed Maleficent her folded vows. The minister behind them began to babble his words that began with, "Dearly beloved…"

Her fingers trembled as she went to unfold the piece of paper. He squeezed her hands tighter and prayed he could soon still the fear in her heart. Tears glimmered in her eyes. Her voice rose up shakily, but gradually steadied itself. "Diaval." First that was all she could manage. "You and I both know that struggle with putting my feelings into words. I'm a lot better at giving you a kiss than giving you a kind word, and I don't say I love you nearly often enough." She swallowed hard. "I figured since we're kind of getting married and there are a whole lot of people watching us, some of them we don't even know or want to know—" the crowd chuckled at this, not realizing the honesty behind it—"what better time than now?"

She took another deep breath and started again. "When I met you, I thought you were easily the most annoying person I had ever met in my entire life." He chuckled. "You liked to talk and smile and shake hands, which were all things I didn't do anymore. But then you looked me in the eyes, and you told me that horses were the best secret keepers. You were the first person who looked at me instead of my cane. And because of this, I love you.

"As we became friends over the months, you started spending more time with me and Nikita in the morning before you went to work. You had no idea how much that meant to me, that you would get up early to make sure I ate breakfast. When it was in the wee hours of the morning on that snowy night and I came running as fast as my broken back could carry me, you were there, and you took care of me as my best friend was lowered into the ground. And because of this, I love you.

"After you found my list and made me do all of those things that I was forbidden from doing, you told me that you loved me. I couldn't say it then because I was afraid of you. I know now what a silly fear I once held." The first of her tears had managed to creep its way out of her eye, and Diaval wiped it away with his thumb. "But weird shit happened like it always has to us, and I ended up confessing everything under the influence of some really dopey drugs. Just think, my love, if you'd never put me on the ice that night, we probably wouldn't be here today." A snort of laughter worked its way up with another tear. "You understood that I was afraid, and you were always careful with me. You loved me enough to wait on me, and because of this, I love you."

Her face broke out into a broad smile. "You are the best man I have ever met. I trusted you with my heart, and you have never damaged it; you have never faltered from my side as long as I have known you. When I am with you, it is better than flying. I am not crippled as long as you are by my side. And because of everything you have done to make my life the most perfect, chaotic, amazing living hell you could have ever imagined, I love you." Her tears couldn't be staunched now, and his own were starting to trickle.

He cleared his throat. "Maleficent. There's no point in me saying this in front of all these people, because by the end I'm going to be crying too hard for anyone to understand me, and our first kiss as husband and wife is going to be incredibly snotty." He gave a soft chuckle, and continued, "When we met…well, for me it was pretty much love at first sight. I mean, let's face it, you're easily the more attractive member of our couple. But really, I thought you were going to be the Estella to my Pip. You didn't believe you had the capacity to love, and I wasn't so sure, either. You were very hurt and broken, and I didn't know if I was capable of fixing you, even if you were going to let me in. But…somewhere along the lines, I realized that I wasn't merely infatuated by your emerald eyes or ruby lips. I really loved you, like a hell of a lot more than I loved my family collectively. Not that that's saying much." The cousins standing as the best men glared at him, but his Millie chuckled through her tears. His own were cascading more quickly.

"I was so scared when I realized just how much I loved you. I was terrified. As one of my favorite books says, if people were rain, I was a little drizzle, and you're a hurricane. A beautiful disaster. And when you got hurt, I was sure you would hate me and blame me for everything." He gulped, and a nervous laugh rose up from his lungs. "But you didn't. You said the exact opposite. That was the day I decided I was going to marry you or die trying. Fortunately, you were pretty apt on moving in with me." The crowd laughed. "And when you said yes…" His voice broke off there, and he could hardly squeeze out his next words through the choked sob that rose up. "I had never been so happy before in my life, Millie."

The minister babbled on a bit longer, and then his monotone asked the first of two questions. "Maleficent Moors, do you take Diaval Ravenscroft to be your lawfully wedded husband to have and to hold for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, from this day forward until death do you part?"

"I do," she murmured.

"And Diaval Ravenscroft, do you take Maleficent Moors to be your lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, from this day forward until death do you part?"

"I do."

They slipped the rings onto each other's fingers, and the minister continued, "Then by the power vested in me by the state of Colorado and our almighty father, I pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Diaval practically ripped her vail off in an attempt to reach hungrily for her lips. She flung her arms around his neck and deepened their kiss. Quiet applause rose up, and one of the bridesmaids fainted.

After the reception where they shook the hands of people they hardly knew and hugged the ones they wished wouldn't have showed up, Diaval busied himself by figuring out how the hell to get the crazy dress contraption off of her. "How did you get into this thing, Mrs. Ravenscroft?"

"It took three people to help." Her face flushed; she tore away his jacket and quickly began to unbutton his shirt. "There's a catch above the zipper." He snatched the bodice free, and it slid down her. Her torso was covered in a thin slip; she wore nothing but panties below the waist. "Good job, Mr. Ravenscroft," she praised.

It was fresh and new, his touch, reverent and worshiping. He pulled her slip free and admired her. Her skin milky white, eyes glowing, hair washing over the bed beneath her. "You are so beautiful," he whispered. He dove down her body with peppery kisses while she fumbled with unbuttoning his pants. This time when he tugged her panties over her ankles and rubbed the juncture between her legs, there was no reason for him to hold back. She gasped and moaned beside him.

It was like the first time all over again, only better, as his touches were not uncertain and her movements knew exactly what would bring the pleasure to both of them. She pinched her knees together to increase the friction, and her eyes were practically rolling back in her head from ecstasy when they reached their climax together, this time as man and wife, forever united.


End file.
